Drinking Gourd Poem by Carol Fleming Klein

Big Dipper
Arrow to the pole star
Floating vessel in the heavens

Slaves escaping north followed you
to freedom
Did they work harder, fear more
cry more silent tears?
Did they taste numbness,
did they reach past despair
to hope
as I must?
Did they catch a vision in the night
of free air?

Oh Drinking Gourd
these haunting visions,
will the night never end?
Sailors trusted you to lead them home.
Where's my pole star?
Where are you Dipper, now?

I'm tired of drifting
I'm tired of endless sea
tired of
new ports
and distant crowds
of stranger's eyes

I want
to see a soul
to dream a dream
to carve a place
some roots for me

Dipper
where are you?
what are you?

Can't you bring me safely home.

Wednesday, April 12,1989