Poetry Magazine
Bemidji Blues
For Arnold Rampersad
Shadows bluing the snow, the pines’ and mine,
bear the cast of a kestrel’s blue-gray crown
I note as I find my way about this town.
Blues here more likely the Nordic-eyes kind
than the blue-black of some Black folk back home.
Here so many lakes reflect the sky’s blue dome;
some summer days skimmed-milk blue tints windblown
whitecaps. Blue’s an adjective, verb, and noun,
and the color of the world when I pine
because she’s gone leaving too much wine and time.
Blue shadows on the snow, mine and the pines’.
For a tall man, blue ox, and now me, home
is Bemidji, though the blues here around
more the cast of a kestrel’s blue-gray crown
than the blue-black of my cousins back home.
Source: Poetry (April 2012).
Biography
Sean Hill is the author of Blood Ties & Brown Liquor (UGA Press, 2008). His awards include fellowships from Cave Canem and the MacDowell Colony. He lives in Bemidji, Minnesota.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Animals, Landscapes & Pastorals, Trees & Flowers, Social Commentaries, Race & Ethnicity
Poetic Terms Rhymed Stanza
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