I saw the black woman,
missing
one eye and a finger,
sweeping
the airport in Singapore,
humming
and smiling
as
if she were a queen
or
a monk minus the orange.
Instead
of raking a gravel garden,
she
moved dust this way and that,
swirling
patterns of the cosmos
for
all I know, spiral galaxies
or
mandalas intended for the trash bin’s hat.
She
saw me and bowed,
and
I returned the vow
to
the sisterhood that keeps time
and
orders the accoutrements of place
so
that every space may have a rhyme.
The
wooden broom
was
her shepherd’s crook,
her
bandana a holy veil.
She
was invisible to most,
but
I suspect that she was revelation.
I
know that she was God.
~William Hammett
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