Trail Of The Smiling Sphinx - Matana Roberts

Tuesday, life goes on like the mighty waters on its way to the Gulf

Sometimes calm, sometimes dashing, waves high, peaceful still

He calmed the sea once with just a few words

I remember daddy stayed behind to talk with Reverend Fleetwood

It didn’t appear pleasant from a distance

But daddy was always talking sharp to somebody

Not in some mean way, just, you know, in that way

That he was letting them know that he was really listening

In that old soldier way of his, he was so scarred by that war

Haunted by ghosts in the far off corners of his mind

That I could never quite decipher

I am a child of the wind, even daddy said so

We used to race and I would always win

And he’d say «Run baby run, run like the wind, that’s it, the wind»

Memory is a most unusual thing, Wednesday

Her eyes would light up and lips curl when she told me

Of the heaven where black folks could enter any of the twelve pearly gates

And they walked on streets of gold and they all had shoes

She could tell stories with such humor and grace and she would often sing to me

I got shoes, they got shoes, everybody’s got shoes

When I get to heaven, gonna put on my shoes

I’m gonna walk all over that heaven, heaven

As the shades of night close in, and the day passes into the great beyond

I find myself at the end of another, I haven’t been too busy, just going along

My last glimpse was seeing her candy colored skin lit up by that bright hot

light

She was on her knees, head down, in a prayer that seemed was not being heard

Daddy in a stance, ready to defend what he felt was his right to be

The house of God, they said, was no place for the mixing of races

Some of those voices I could make out, Mr. Hancock of the dried good store

Mr. Hart of the livery stable, and even daddy’s cousin Thompsy McCall

Whose voice I could always recognize

Because it always seemed pitched to the lowest of the low

And he still had that accent that spoke of another far away far away place

That he couldn’t hide even if he wanted to

I am a child of the wind, even daddy said so

We used to race and I would always win

And he’d say «Run baby run, run like the wind, that’s it, the wind»

Memory is a most unusual thing, Thursday

A love you miss for an eternity

I am a child of the wind, even daddy said so

We used to race and I would always win

And he’d say «Run baby run, run like the wind, that’s it, the wind»

Memory is a most unusual thing, peace be still

So many a restless body is given peace, one way or the other

Do lord, oh do lord, oh do you remember me?

Do lord, oh do lord, oh do you remember me?

Do lord, oh do lord, oh do you remember me?

Oh do lord, oh do lord, oh do you remember me?