TWO POEMS
by Sheila Smith McKoy
SOUNDING OCEANS
​
4/2/22
​
i know the Atlantic like I know my hand--
swimming into the heart of her waves
i am part of a lineage of blackbrowntan
arms reaching out above the cresting
waters
the Pacific was warm to me, stranger
though I was to her sand & her shores
& her chilling waters, but in Hawaii
she was blue - warm as my east-shore
waters
the caress of the Indian warming
& welcome. she joined with warm,
tan sand just beyond the winding
rocky path that led me to her gentle
waters
there are possibilities in oceans,
ways to encounter the deep
emotion, connect to the songs
that Earth only whispers in her
waters
​
​
WHILE THE PRETTY MUSIC PLAYED
for Jaco Pastorius
​
i hear echoes of everything lush
in the wilds of your sound
your genius straddles so many levels
of consciousness, sounds strong
enough to free us from the hellish heft
of life, liberate us from ourselves
that bass can trace every kind of karma
you leap through time everywhere, merge
soul-first into astral-beats
blue whales speak to you in bass notes
when they rise to meet the sun
this time, destiny waits at the door
near the Midnight Bottle Store
foretelling parables for the yet un-damned
i will not listen to the sounds of your dying heart
while it sprawls dog-down in that alleyway instead
of rising like a blackbird flying fearlessly in the moonlight
* * *
​
An award-winning poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker, Sheila Smith McKoy is the recipient of the 2020 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Prize in poetry, and a Pulitzer and Pushcart nominated writer. She was editor of Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora for nine years, 2006-2015. In addition to The Bones Beneath, Smith McKoy has authored or edited several books, most recently including The Wisdom of Ifá: An Ancient Paradigm for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond (co-edited, 2025), Teaching Literature and Writing in Prisons (2023), Recovering the African Feminine Divine in Literature, the Arts, and Performing Arts: Yemonja Awakening (co-edited, 2020).