A Part Of Me Was Divested Of Beauty by AM Kamaal

A part of me was divested of beauty:

The part that knows the reasons behind

These smiling faces. That knows the gazes of truth.

The squatting of reality. The beauty of the sun,

The beauty of the moon, and the beauty of the stars

Were elegantly seen with the brief darkness

Upon the sky—shining slowly—to the elevator

Of midnight. The beauty that only sees beauty

Has gone, praising ephemerality. &

World is an uproar of silence. I have an alternative

For feeling the beauty of this cage:

Caging no birds that sing. Songs are more beautiful

When the birds sing freedom.

When the birds sing as if nothing is

Or never will be than the naturalness of nature.

When the birds sing as if everything is

Nothing but an opportunity to open their beaks

To singing out loud their independence

In their tuneful hidden voices.

AM Kamaal is a Nigerian poet and writer. When he's not writing, he reads Ezra Pound, and Jericho Brown, listens to Àyìnlá Ọmọwúrà songs, and watches Hollywood.