Mervyn Taylor

The Blind Man Who Saw through Us 
for Steve Cannon

What I remember most of all
about the reading in your garden
is the treacherous fire escape
one had to descend to get there,

the lingering tremor in my legs 
as I stood among the flowers, 
the East Village pressing close.
From an upstairs window you

shouted, Tell them about Walcott!
About his experience west of here,
the thugs who kicked and scattered
his poems in the snow, your tone

chiding, as if I had been there, and 
done nothing to help gather them in. 
You were, and are, always on patrol: 
rickety stairs, blindness—no excuses.

Beloved         
                             for Toni Morrison

The day you died two deputies
led a black man into town
between their horses,

spectators lining both sides 
of the street recalling the days 
patterrollers brought runaways

back in chains, the clanking 
heard long before the captives
appeared, like this man, limping,

the rope round his wrists tied to 
the pommel of one of the saddles. 
His eyes, fixed on a place far away,

made us feel he could have been 
in one of those novels of yours, 
the child a mother had let live.

Mervyn Taylor, a Trinidad-born poet and longtime Brooklyn resident, has taught at Bronx Community College, The New School and in the New York City public school system. He is the author of seven books of poetry, including The Waving Gallery (2014), and most recently, Country of Warm Snow (2020). About his work, Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott said, “Taylor’s is a quiet voice. His poems possess an admirable degree of subtlety, and a tone that keeps him separate and unique.” Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Slapering Hol Press.