Episode 075 Someone Leans Near - Toni Morrison

This last week, the world mourned the passing of literary titan Toni Morrison. Morrison famously said, "I don't like to have someone call my books 'poetic' because it has the connotation of luxuriating richness. I wanted to restore the language black people spoke to its original power." Morrison did, however, write 5 poems. Connor and Jack Discuss one of them, "Someone Leans Near."

Read all five of Morrison's poems, here: https://believermag.com/five-poems-by-toni-morrison/?fbclid=IwAR1-x9OjSe__E_TJKDAIoI_C2kZrzwMFWvh_fkyWcflIoj0k6YSSYmj378Y

Someone Leans Near
By: Toni Morrison

Someone leans near
And sees the salt your eyes have shed.

You wait, longing to hear
Words of reason, love or play
To lash or lull you toward the hollow day.

Silence kneads your fear
Of crumbled star-ash sifting down
Clouding the rooms here, here.

You shore up your heart to run. To stay.
But no sign or design marks the narrow way.

Then on your skin a breath caresses
The salt your eyes have shed.

And you remember a call clear, so clear
“You will never die again.”

Once more you know
You will never die again.