Celebration in Autumn

Today’s news: everything is beautiful.
The rain-bled oil stain in the parking lot has brushed
the black top magenta and electric blue,
and the Texaco pump is Texaco red,
and the goldrush apples in their bushel blush.
And the black girls are going to the white house.

In the Blue Ridge, land of Tom Jefferson
and God’s country, good ol’ boy God, the hell-raised fields
are aflame with green and foothills crimson;
ridgelines with cayenne, cumin, turmeric burst.
Oaks swear in yellow sash and barn-burn forth.
And the black girls are going to the white house.

The black girls are going to the white house,
and the poplars have gone henna, burgundy, rust.
The river, like the trout within, turns and gleams,
a silver flash. And saffron does as saffron wants.
Red maples each day more drunk than the last.
And the black girls are going to the white house.

Men the color of lattes and of wet hay bales
in the country store shake hands and move their mouths.
The dusk udders of the clouds are doused
blood-orange, loose scarves of flame flare out
fray and wisp, molecularly bright.
The black girls are going to the white house--

Even as we speak, brute-pink is streaming south
in lines banded over pale blue limestone sky.
Someone has left a construction barrel out.
And from the farmhouse on the hill, four windows
pour four squares of gold into the darkening night.
And the black girls are going to the white house.

— November 5-6, 2008