Down Home Ecstasy

(In tribute to Muddy Waters)

Listen to the Blues
Visualize
Charcoal black sweet, sweat sinews
Broad, powerful

Sunset of smudged peach,
purple and orange
Honeysuckle
Fireflies
Cotton dresses

Brother testify with a harmonica
Make it preach
Baby, do your thing

Boss man’s gone
Now, here is love and rhythm
Here is pathos in wailing song

A woman lounges
A child’s head in her lap

Heads thrown back
Spines arched and proud

Listen:
Can’t you hear
Song give birth?
Can’t you hear that cry
Like throaty thunder?
Can’t you feel its caress
Sultry and strong?

Blackness pure, undiluted
Like well water
Dipped up to a pair of full lips
Pouring down a long graceful neck

Ain’t nothing like the Blues

Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 2007 all rights reserved
First appeared in PemBroke Magazine 2007

This is one of my favorite poems cause I love the Blues -- and I had so much fun writing it.
Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker... are true stoytellers (smile)!