what does it mean that blk folks cd sing n dance?
why do we say that so much/ we dont know what we
mean/
i saw what that means/ good god/ did i see/ like i cda
walked on the water myself/ i cda clothed the naked
&fed
the hungry/ with what dance i saw tonite/ i don’t
mean dance
i mean a closer walk with thee/a race thru swamps
that fall
off in space/ i mean i saw the black people move the
ground
& set stars beneath they feet/so what’s this mean
that
black folks cd dance/ well/ how abt a woman like
dyane harvey who can make
her body the night riders & the runaways/ the
children hangin
on they mama’s dress/ while they father’s beat to
death/ the
blood/ from the man’s wounds/his woman’s tears/
the night riders
goin off in darkness/ the silence of the night

how abt bernadine j. whose body waz all of that in
5 minutes/ & whose very presence humbled all but the
drum/
now that’s a dance/ like rael lamb careenin cross
the stage on his bare stomach/ fifty feet/
sounds like possums n rattlesnakes/ mississippi
undercurrents
& steamin hog mawls/ tossin him from decatur to
south texas/
tearin him from contraction to leaps so expansive/
his body
took the space allowed thirty redwood trees/ & those
sounds
kept pushin him/ little racing motors like the cops
waz
round the bend/ windows opened & shut cuz there
are things
others ought not hear/ feet on stairways of burned
out homes/
the sounds pushed him/ & there was a dance that
was a black
dance/ that’s what it means that black folks cd
dance/ it
dont mean we got rhythm/ it dont mean the slop or
the hully gully/
or this dance in houston callt “the white boy”/ it
dont mean just
what we do all the time/ it’s how we remember what
cannot be said/
that’s why the white folks say it aint got no form/
what was the form
of slavery/ what was the form of jim crow/ & how
wd they
know . . .