Revelation at Cap Ferrat

By Clarence Major b. 1936 Clarence Major

It’s not solely the dance

of the juggler but his spirit:

with its turkey wings, perfect thighs,

sensuous hips, large round flat eye.

This eye smiles like lips.

Watch this eye—

it’s not a donkey eye.

It’s not solely the dancer

who moves like a circus animal

as though to children’s music—no,

it’s the girl in the swing’s rhythm,

the ticking of the clock at night,

the strut of the cock, the flight

of the holy family to the remains.

The nipple that feeds

the infant is an eye looking

into his future.

It’s not even the village square

with its musicians and happy faces

that makes the difference—no,

because if it were, weddings

with violins, harps, flutes

would have settled the question:

no, it is the rising and lifting,

the failing and catching of

that unknown sense of self

before it crashes, that matters.

Clarence Major, “Revelation at Cap Ferrat” from Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958-1998. Copyright © 1998 by Clarence Major. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townshend, WA 98368-0271, coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958-1998 (Copper Canyon Press, 1998)

Biography

American writer Clarence Major "has been in the forefront of experimental poetry and prose," Eugene B. Redmond writes in Parnassus. "In prose he fits 'loosely' into a category with William Melvin Kelley and Ishmael Reed. But his influences and antecedents are not so easy to identify." Perhaps best known for his novels, Major draws on his experience as a Southern African-American to "[defy] the white-imposed 'traditions' of black . . .

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