Obediah
Michael Smith nació en New Providence, Bahamas, en 1954. Profesor de inglés y
de Literatura. Realizó estudios de dramaturgia y de francés. Obra
poética: Love, 1972; Bicentennial Blues, 1977; 43 Poems, 1979; Ice Cubes, 1982;
Acts, 1983; Fruits From Africa, 1987; Once Upon A Blank Page, 1991; As If
Creation Were His Crime, 1993; Soul of These Soils Sail of These Seas, 1996;
Christmas Lights, 2003; Poems To Sit On To Shell Peas, 2003; On The Hinges of
This Town, 2003; Seventy Poems, 2009; Open Testament, 2009.
Selección por Gladys Mendía
African Son
Nelson Mandela
died yesterday
like Hamlet said
of Ophelia
he should have
died hereafter
recall Orville
Turnquest,
eulogizing
someone
might have been
when
he was GG of The
Bahamas
was it his wife
or our first
Prime Minister
he alluded to
Shakespeare,
evoked this same
sentiment
same phrase
these so very
well arranged
five words
when someone
as great as
Mandela dies
what do you do
or say
how well tears
welling up and
falling
without words
convey
can I let words
fall upon paper
as purely as
tears
language and its
devices,
at times,
what awkward
mechanics
Victoria Falls,
thundering down,
its gushing
white waters
weeping nature
nature weeping
at times like
these
on such
occasions
as well, what is
evoked
what I recall
the idea that
there is in the
world
a constant
amount
of laughter and
weeping
no matter what
transpires
might be a
constant balance also
of dying and
being born
see-saw of life
and death
the day Marius
Petipa
great Russian
choreographer,
86 and in
despair,
wrote in his
diary
all is wasted,
no one to carry
on
my life's work,
George
Balanchine was born
who, yesterday,
came into the
world
when Mandela
went out
when his candle,
after 95 years,
was extinguished
whose was lit
light and
darkness
in the world
as well a
constant
like the balance
of day and night
yesterday, I
suppose,
the dark side of
the moon
showed its face
Mandela done,
Mandela dies
too full of days
© Obediah
Michael Smith, 2013
Written in Mexico City
8:35 p.m. 06.12.13
