I Am
I.
I am the forgotten song emerging in you
I communed with your soul when your grandmother sang
My verses are in your veins
my rhythm courses through your heart
Open your mouth and let me out
I will fly back to the place of your birth
I will gather visions of school yards
and adolescent games
I will cross the ocean to the home of your ancestors
I will summon their language within your body
You will hear the echoes of revolution and war
You will feel the passion of love and release
You will know the peace of joy and bravery
Its all here
inside of me
I am the song
II.
I am blues
I am jazz
I am rock and roll
I am Muddy Waters singing "I be’s troubled" on the front porch of
a cabin on Stovall Plantation
I tell you "I never be’s sasafied"
and you say the sorrow sounds sweeter
than sweet potato pie
I am John Coltrane with my tenor sax on a good night in the
Harlem Beat Kitchen
Miles is playing the sad notes
Bird is playing the pretty ones
and I am burning a hole in this ceiling
Art and Monk are sitting there with their mouths wide open saying
"Boy what got into you?"
and I say "No, what got out of me?"
because I got the heroine out of my veins
I am loud amplifiers, headbands, costumes, platform shoes and yes
I can play this guitar
behind my back
and when I’ve strangled every sound out of this Stratocaster
that you couldn’t imagine
and she is destroyed because her message was too wonderful to
hear
and burned like a witch
then you say
"He was our voice and our savior"
III.
I am bald like the eagle
and I glide high above
with succinct movements
exuding regality in all that I am
I screech and my voice
is swallowed in this canyon
where I believe myself to be
king
You admire me
but you smile a smug smile
knowing that one day
the sky will become a mirror
IV.
I am fat and spoiled
like the squirrel who plunders the moldy bread and bird seed
that my mother has left for the blue jays
In the thrill of my theft
I wander into the street
to receive rebuke from an angry Monte Carlo
panic stricken
I turn both to the left and to the right
forgetting my origin and name
V.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made
I am every man and every woman
(no, this is not Walt Whitman)
and I am the LORD’s creation
I am the forgotten song that is emerging in you
I am the inner-city and the country
the soy beans and the section-8-government housing
I am the earth, wind, sky and stars
I am the eagle
I am the squirrel
blues, jazz, rock and roll
rich, poor, wise and otherwise
I am american
I am the world
I am
VI.
I AM the I AM
from the beginning
(as you call it)
and to the end
I am not something you can figure out
with your finite mind
I am very near you
and will never be far
Surrender to me
love me
I am the LORD
