each day is fulminant

Today was both Maya Angelou's birthday—she would have been 90—and the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. I was booked solid all day and am completely exhausted and haven't really had any energy to think about any of that, but: Angelou, right?

     FOR DAVID P—B    

The eye follows, the land
Slips upward, creases down, forms 
The gentle buttocks of a young 
Giant. In the nestle,
Old adobe bricks, washed of 
Whiteness, paled to umber,
Await another century.

Star Jasmine and old vines
Lay claim upon the ghosted land, 
Then quiet pools whisper 
Private childhood secrets.

Flush on inner cottage walls 
Antiquitous faces,
Used to the gelid breath
Of old manors, glare disdainfully 
Over breached time.

Around and through these 
Cold phantasmatalities, 
He walks, insisting
To the languid air,
Activity, music,
A generosity of graces.

His lupin fields spurn old
Deceit and agile poppies dance
In golden riot.   Each day is
Fulminant, exploding brightly 
Under the gaze of his exquisite 
Sires, frozen in the famed paint 
Of dead masters. Audacious 
Sunlight casts defiance
At their feet.

—Maya Angelou (1928-2014), "California Prodigal" from And Still I Rise, 1978.