Sunrize

I have something to confess to you. Please do NOT tell anyone. I got my krump on last night. I don't know if that's even the right grammatical context; I'm new to all things krump. But, after watching "Rize," this documentary of krump and clown dancing, with its amazing dancers turning into blurs of pistoning hips and swarming arms and the beat like a spine running from them, from the screen, to me, I looked at myself in the mirror, and tried it. And felt very white, but very good. But, really, please keep this between us.

This morning, when I woke up, that krump feeling remained, and it's one of starting to let go of whatever frost has been under my skin for a few years now, that's kept me numb even while zooming through fascinating adventures, with wonderful people, and seeming externally to connect with them. Even though the sun hasn't krumped over Columbia for a few days, sealed behind this solid layer of white, like a clown's face paint, there was a warmth in walking to campus, in the neon tubes of ice rinding the limbs of the spidery trees along the way, and the pull of the poesy I'm at this here computer to work on.

I'm realizing, as I hammer away at this long poem I've been working on for four years, started in the workshop of the formidably talented Judy Jordan, that I don't know how a long poem goes. So I've looked at a few of the more famous ones, Waste Land and Angel of History, mostly, and realized that long poems (well, all two that I've looked at so far) start short, small, not trumpeting or announcing themselves as such. They may start with long lines, but do so establishing context, to put you there in the scene.

Happy MLK day to you. And, if you don't tell anyone about me krumping, I won't tell anyone about yours.