For Clementine Hunter, by ​Daniel Fitzpatrick

​For Clementine Hunter

Strung gourds choke up out of earth, out
from loam the tinge of ecstasy at dusk.
Eyes filmed over prophesy in smoke 
as cyclopes score a music of mule sweat, 
chink the blackest eaves with cooled off
Sun’s blood, blinking come, caution.

Ripple, crumble, fade, aching
over barrow handles,
bandanaed, powdered, stewing
a week’s caked vestments far from shade.
The grass is green with killing,
the scalded earth watered with pig shrieks
spilled from the black, oak-shrouded cauldron
where unease curls in whispers,
smiling to vine the lustrous pickets.

Do not let the earth undo what dares,
slide splayed and craving from the furrow
that is yours. Let the little bites 
chime the garden gate and teach
a song too deep for melody. 
That’s us in the ground, in the ground, crying.

​Daniel Fitzpatrick

This poem was inspired by Harvesting Gourds near the African House and Wash Day Near Ghana House, Melrose Plantation, by Clementine Hunter (USA)  1959.
https://noma.org/clementine-hunter-mural/
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Daniel Fitzpatrick is the author of two novels and two poetry collections. He is a member of the creative assembly at the New Orleans Museum of Art. He edits a journal called Joie de Vivre.