Crystal Williams “Double Helix”
After Jacob Lawrence’s “The Migration Series”
and Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns”
One
At night, my father played piano & sang,
his voice our raft on a quiet lake,
an island of gentleness
& because gentleness is a choice,
I know something—,
I have told you something essential about my father
& the history of black people in America.
& because he looked at my mother & me
as if we were divine, brilliant, bright children of God
& because if gesture & spirit have weight,
my father’s equaled two thousand blooming peonies,
I have told you something about faith
& the history of black people in America.
Scientists are full of news these days:
We are rotting fruit lain to ground.
In each breath we inhale thousands of humans
collected on the tongues of leaves,
in the pink eyes of peonies, on the powdery backs of pollen.
Exhaled.
With each draw, a millennia of history enters us
& we cannot control,
can only harness whom or what we host.
Our traumas, the bright blue mysticisms
& burnt orange murmurs,
our joys & muddled currencies
are archived in genetic code.
I am not of my father’s blood
but am of my father,
which is also the history of black people in America.
At my 6th birthday party,
the parents drank martinis & sangria
in white linen & silk
as we played on the Slip-n-Slide
while the desolate beast next door
snarled & snapped through the fence,
our jubilation magnifying his rage.
He leapt & whipped into an ever-reddening frenzy
& because pain will out,
& because hatred will out,
& because my father sensed a shift in the air
because he deeply believed my mother & me divine
& the faithful have second sight,
& because some Alabama-born malice
had taught him a lesson to do with mercilessness,
the way danger wets the wind,
my father tore into the house
emerging with a finger on a gun’s trigger.
He stood sentinel the rest of the day,
gun slack on his thigh,
squinting at the feverishness at the fence—
as we leapt & shrieked & ate cake.
This is what I was trying to explain to Avi
when I sent him that book
about black migration from the American south.
I was trying to say: we have cause to care for
& track our wounds.
To be anything other than enraged or dead
is to be a success if black in America.
To become a refuge, a safe harbor
is to be a miracle if black in America.
His ailing father listened quietly
as Avi read aloud passages
about the vicious hand of the south
& burnings & bodies & swinging, cold chicken & packed trains,
escapees casting towards a northern brink
they could not fully understand,
away from an ending they did.
& because hatred will out
& because we cannot control whom or what we host.
& because his father is a Holocaust survivor,
in a moment of lucidity, he said sadly:
“Son, why do you insist on reading me my story?”
So we, the Jewish son
the African daughter, mouths bursting & soured with flowers & fauna,
rotting leaves & peonies
& men banging on the midnight door,
stood as an ecosystem
of gas & fire,
double helixes & light,
the story of, the choices of,
our fathers knotted between us.
& because I wanted to touch his face as my own,
& because I felt his skin shudder
as my own,
understood his father’s stubble as my own
& because what are we if not our brothers?
& because there has always been binding & burning & escaping
& enduring & because I know no better way
to understand the history of human beings
than to tell you the story of my father’s choice
to be a raft on a lake,
which, no matter what more you might be told,
is the true story of black thought,
black life, black people in America.
Two
At night, my father sang,
his voice our raft on a quiet lake,
an island of gentleness
& because gentleness is a choice,
& because in each breath we inhale thousands of humans
on the powdery backs of pollen,
I have told you something essential
& because he looked at my mother & me as if we were divine
& because we were really only rotting fruit
lain to ground
& because if gesture & spirit have weight,
my father’s equaled two thousand blooming peonies,
At my 6th birthday party,
the beast next door snarled & snapped through the fence.
& because our mysticisms & currencies
are archived genetic code
& because pain will out, & because hatred outs
& because some Alabama-born malice had taught him
mercilessness,
my father emerged from the house
a gun’s trigger
and the rest of the day stood as if a refuge, a harbor,
the feverishness at the fence
staring at it as we leapt & shrieked
& then Avi read passages from the book
& because we cannot control whom or what we host,
& because Avi’s father is a Holocaust survivor,
he asked: “Son, why?”
& because we stood as an ecosystem of double helixes,
Alabama & Holocaust knotted between us
& because I wanted to touch his face as my own,
as if we were divine, brilliant, bright children of God
& because I felt his skin shudder as my own,
as if we were divine, brilliant, bright children of God,
understood his father’s stubble as my own
& because what are we?
& because there has always been binding & escaping & enduring
& because I am not of my father’s blood
but am of Avi’s father,
I know no better way to explain
the history of humans
than to tell you my father played piano at night
& sang,
his voice our raft on a quiet lake,
an island of gentleness
& gentleness is a choice,
is a miracle in America.