Think Thoughts Thinking


Think Thoughts Thinking



"Think," she sang

out of the black fire of 1968,

the smoldering year, "what you're trying to do to me.

You better think…" and we thought,

out of vernacular pride

under skin, over bone and blood,

our minds on vacation

in assassinated dreams

on the freeways of love,

our mouths contradicting

our teeth so finely chewing

the lotus of revolutions

that our eyes would not see

what was on the ground

when a natural woman

sang in a man's world.

Me was not she but we.

And the histories

we failed to think into  

with diligence of ice

fried our minds and  our hair.

Death begets new valuation,

regrets, perhaps,

that our ears did

now and then misconstrue

the genius art of her voice

spun on iconic turntables

as  the "quiet-as-its-kept"

sound/waves carried her power,

her iterations of ain't no way

but to do right in the house that God built.

"Think," she sings

out of the black fire of 1968

"what you're trying to do to me."

After fifty years

our thoughts do think

with overdue respect

and treasure for destiny's sake

what the Queen of Soul

sanctified in sounds for us to make.

Me is not she but we.





Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            November 9, 2018


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