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A few days before Wright died / Langston Hughes knocked on his door

 
 

 

A Poem for Richard

By E. Ethelbert Miller

At two and three in the morning

when sleep walks away like a lover

 

I think of Richard Wright

Dead at fifty-two

 

He lived in a small apartment in France

alone without Ellen or the kids

 

A few days before Wright died

Langston Hughes knocked on his door

 

Here was the poet of Harlem

saying hello to the black boy and native son

 

I think about Langston looking

into Richard's eyes and searching for a river

 

Maybe the Mississippi moving one more day

down the delta with the blues

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Source: E. Ethelbert Miller. How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love. Curbstone Press, 2004.

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The 5th Inning by E. Ethelbert Miller

The 5th Inning is poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller's second memoir. Coming after Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (published in 2000), this book finds Miller returning to baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life. Almost 60, he ponders whether his life can now be entered into the official record books as a success or failure.

The 5th Inning is one man's examination of personal relationships, depression, love and loss. This is a story of the individual alone on the pitching mound or in the batters box. It's a box score filled with remembrance. It's a combination of baseball and the blues.

To see a clip of Ethelbert reading The 5th Inning click here: http://www.eethelbertmiller.com/etube

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update 2 August 2008

 

 

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