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Jeffery Renard Allen's Poetry
The Clearing
--for Lauryn Hill
In that kingdom to come
that scripted promise known as zion
the sea-changed blacken the horizon with chopping rhythm
Row and rest and range
buoyant vessels of wrath
Dawn hammers a ledger mean, measured, made
Razored wings open us
Valley and brook pulse red with our pumping inner life
Refrained years behind
we ring,
belled anger
A charged hand thumbs our blind foreheads with berry juice:
Paid
We purchase coats in the coin of life to come
Then the siren issues her singular call
At the stream's edge
one hundred forty-four thousand gather
waying with skyward eyes,
robes humming and the new song on pitched lips
No longer must we kneel before the stumblingstone
No longer must our palms shape the clay of offense
The final hour
children are counted for the seed
December 7, 1998