State I’m In
With Whom United
for Sonia Farmer

i.
is what I’m doing adding up
who I am, how I am
are these paying off

such imbalance between
on the one hand
what I am busy with,
what I labor with
and what I get for these, for it

such imbalance between
what I do to fix this country
to make it one
and what it does for me
what it gives back

I am beggar here, little more
Sidney Poitier, in Hollywood
is a super star

not that I’d wish to be a star
not one upon a Christmas tree
not a real one plummeting down
falling through the dark

I just want to be part
of what rises and falls
reciprocity sea-saw produces,
provides,
like high tide, low tide

in this economy
what banks get away with,
what Starbuck’s charges for coffee,
compared with my ability to sell
and to collect for poetry

something’s not right
about these, about fees
about what Atlantis makes
and what I give for free
in this warm climate, must I freeze

so many Caribbean artists, poets
go to cold Canada to live
to feel rewarded, appreciated
must I too go to examine this mystery
this paradox

woman from Haiti, I understand,
in Canada, is Governor General
Edwidge Danticat,
writer from Haiti, in the U.S.A.
is a literary giant
am I placed where it’s best for me
where it’s best to be

here the wheels turn slowly
at home, I am unable to get a Ph.D.
little or no credit
for all that I teach
for all that I learn

where to from this place, from this day

ii.
when we raised chickens,
from they were little, until they were
large enough to slaughter
would gather about the water trough
about the feed trough
it is there where they grew

often times I feel so far removed
from the water trough
from the feed trough
from the salt lick

here I am puny when others are so well
and so fat, here I am dying
when others are living it up


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
8:02 p.m. 20/10/07