Little Black Sambo
for Marie
1.
Always my mother's voice
reading this book aloud to me
it's tilting rhythm,
and Sambo himself
rocking on shoes that curled
like boats on the water.
Sailing the jungle,
green silk parasol tilting
to keep the wicked sun at bay,
to catch the wind just so.
2.
Sambo aglow in
the brilliant colors of undergrowth,
dancing the rustle of parrots,
swish and whisper of taffeta,
stepping out on the town,
like a woman does:
revelling in this body,
this time, this little bit of jungle cool,
these clothes moving over the skin,
these feet caressing the path.
3.
And what delight
when Sambo tricks the tigers
who come after him,
gives them his little red coat,
his azure trousers, his lovely pair of purple shoes
with crimson soles and linings, one by one,
triggers their grandiosity
so they swell and prance,
and swagger away,
no longer hungry,
so full are they of themselves.
4.
Again and again I pictured the two of us
cowering on the margins behind a parasol
watching tigers posture and growl,
tangled in the whirlwind
that drives the rat race,
the take this, take that place,
chasing each others' tails,
until they become a blur of anger so hot
it wears away all tigerness,
turns them into fatcats:
a melting pool of butter
for Sambo's pancakes.
5.
It never was less than miraculous,
to feast like that,
to stuff yourself,
with Sambo and his family,
on the foolishness of tigers
sweetened by a little maple syrup.
It had little to do
with being or not being black.
It was more about hope
that the awful sense of lack
we have-nots felt
would someday, like empty bellies,
be finally filled.
6.
Each time she got to the end
my mother added her own little part to the story,
about the pancake eating contests
she and her best friend Walter
used to put on for the little kids.
Well, hungry as he might have been,
Walter never could make himself want
as many of them as she did.
You see, she was, like Sambo,
a gustatory champion
and I remember the sunlight halo
melting around her as she reminisced:
golden and delicious as liquid tiger.
7.
Depression, war, impending
holocaust, terror.
Each generation's
walk through the jungle
surprised by a new kind of chaos.
How small we are
as we cower in the shadows.
Take joy in that body of yours,
my mother and the story
enjoined in chorus:
Strut when you can
and keep your tricks at the ready.
Storms rage but they also die out.
Protect yourself and survive to tell the tale.
Then gather up what's left
and make it a feast.
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