Jaha the poet's muse

I started this blog (to go with the other one that I started) because of Jaha Zainabu.

My blog's title is a riff off her title, but not her life. She (my friend and niece and muse) has insisted many times that I should catalog my life, my stories, my poems, if for no other reason than I have grand daughters who will want to know me one day. And I haven't. But she inspires me and pushes me. So, in the days ahead, old poems will appear here. And I am sure that typing them up will make me want to write new poems and life's stories. The other blog will continue to be, mostly, about love, inthisplaceweflesh. But here, because of Jaha, you will get to read my poetry. Here's one of my favorites from 10 years ago:


We Came Roaring out of the 1970s

We came roaring out of the 1970s

On the back of a Suzuki 900

Four gears up, one down

And the only time I held on tight

Is when I wanted to feel the heat

From your body

We rode without helmets, 30 miles

Over the speed limit and wild

On graveled roads, kicking

Dust and rocks

We laid that bike down so many times

That we believed we were invincible

We’d get up with skinned knees,

Burnt calves, and laughing

At each other’s Afros laying down

Away from our face

We were foolish, and young

Doing what foolish young people do,

Laughing on the edge of death,

Unaware and unafraid

Sometimes, we’d hit a wind tunnel

And skid; we learned to lean

In the same direction on time

To steady the bike and our

Own heartbeats

We learned the names of rivers

In Central Alabama so we could

Plot our course by name

Rode past lichen-covered trees,

Sat on the sides of roads, popped

The heads off wild mushrooms

Told each other secrets

We were planning the future of the world,

And calculating the days to graduation,

Last embraces, good-bye kisses

And scholarships.  You never planned to leave,

But I didn’t know it at the time

That bike connected us

To the same dreams,

But you were planted in

Tall Sylacauga corn,

But I had Senegal

And the Ivory Coast

In my veins

Once, on highway 76 to Talladega,

An 18-wheeler played chicken with our lives,

Riding hard up on our bumper, he

Sandwiched us between him the rough

Wall of clay and dogwoods on the right

And a yellow pick-up truck

I felt your muscles tighten,

And my throat followed suit.

It was the only time we were ever scared

On that bike

I think of you on rainy days, and the times

We rode past the Hamilton house, the

Haunted hollows on our way to Waco pool

We swam upstream, and kept each other

Company in our madness

You, and that bike, were my best friends

© Valerie Bridgeman [Davis]
26 October 2002