Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

My former teacher, the poet Sonia Sanchez, turned 90 years old this year. That makes her a nonagenarian. Many folks, young and old, traveled to Harlem to fete her with song, dance, and speeches. I was especially moved by teenagers from a high school near her Philadelphia home. They spoke of Sonia’s enduring commitment to people, to a world where we stand upright as humans. It was a rousing party for an elder. I wish we had more such gatherings.

Many years ago, when I was her student, her son Mungu walked into a class and handed her a large bright bouquet of flowers. That’s when I learned we share a birthday. For the better part of thirty-six years, I have called her on September 9 to pay respects.

I cherish our conversations; she’s one of those elders who remains grounded but also thinks large about our spiritual health. She hit on a provocation, of that, in her speech at the end of her celebration. She said, the earth cannot continue to sustain us; our small and large wars with each other will eventually lead to a collapse. She said, listen. She said, resist dehumanizing each other in speech and in deed. She said sit long enough in your quiet and hear the voices below.

Always after conversations with Sonia, I find myself paying attention just a little more. I notice the quality of light and air; events long ago feel present on the very land beneath me. That evening on the way to my hotel, I noticed bodies on the subway telling their stories, speaking their feelings, their deep stares, their slumps of exhaustion, their straight-backed dignity.

Today’s poem invites us to attune, to notice, to hear what’s communicated beneath our words and bodies, to read the signs, even if what is heard or seen or felt bears an ominous message.

Vulture
by Ted Kooser

I wouldn’t have noticed it, so tiny it was,
hundreds of feet overhead, small as an eyelash,
smaller even than that, like the black mark

a pencil will make when, as in this instance,
it’s dropped on the clean blue and white tiles 
of the sky. It should have been of no meaning,

but I felt its chill shadow pass over, maybe
twenty feet wide, like that of a crop duster,
passing low over the trees, spraying shade,

disappearing, then coming around again, wings
gliding soundless. It was that kind of a shadow 
that doesn’t brush lightly over the treetops,

but drops right down into them, flying
straight through, transforming itself into 
a confetti of darkness, touching every last leaf

for an instant and then setting them free,
re-forming itself in the shape of a shadow
gone on. The trees weren’t troubled by this but

I was, a little. Although it was bright day,
it felt all too much like one of those patches 
of death that, like a loose shingle, work themselves

free from the roof of the future and come 
sliding down over my eyes at around two 
in the morning, dropping past the green light

from the clock. But this happened in day,
and I squinted up into the light, feeling relieved 
that a vulture was there to explain it. 

“Vulture” by Ted Kooser from RAFT © 2024 Ted Kooser. Used by permission of the Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.