Soul Serenade Poem by Nika McGuin
Soul Serenade
How do we know
the tragic beauty
of our ancestors' hums
we know it...
as well as we know the azure
of thin veins in our wrists
as well as we know the toffee brown
of our melanin-abound skin
It echos in our ears
ringing like song with no beginning
& no ending - like a song we've
never heard, yet somehow know
a song kin to our ancient souls
We hear it in our sleep
see the green cotton fields
in our dreams, the sad hyms of bygone times
become our inheritance
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/4/2024 12:58:59 PM # 1.0.0.1119
Nika, I am stunned by your poem - it is a poem in which truth and beauty are in perfect balance, which is not always possible to achieve when you are wrestling with words as we poets are always doing. But here the two highest qualities of literature, namely, truth and beauty, are pitch-perfect. I will have to re-read this several times before I can write my customary commentary, so that's yet to come, but let me add right now a parallel - John Keats (one of my masters I realize clearly now) wrote BEAUTY IS TRUTH, TRUTH IS BEAUTY - THAT IS ALL YE KNOW ON EARTH, AND ALL YE NEED TO KNOW. I've always had trouble with that blanket statement, but your poem gives me a genuine poem that illustrates its accuracy. Now I can wrap my mind around it, with your SOUL SERENADE providing the convincing, no, PERSUASIVE proof.