After a Hard Rain
A praise poem for Steve Cannon by Bob Holman
he’s gone from the hillside
that demands reparations
he’s gone from the interchange
that never stops changing
he’s gone from the poem
that will never be spoken
he’s gone from the gathering
where all tribes are represented
he’s gone from the future
that he was already living
he’s gone from the emails
he deletes before receiving
he’s hammering the verses
on whalebone and cardboard
he’s drifting in consciousness
where no one can find him
he’s hearing your words
before you can speak them
he’s making love in the sunshine
with sunshine sisters & brothers
he’s inventing new ways
for art galleries to blast off
he can’t believe he has to repeat
his slogans of simplicity
he refuses to understand
your old systems of logic
he matches your bet and
he raises your anti-
he manifests his destiny
inside of a flower
he takes truth to the limits and
leaves us there gasping
he can’t stop the world so
the world closes around him
he ran off with his lover
when no one was watching
he climbed the tall mountains
and fished us from deep waters
he lifted up the wasted
& wanted the wanted
his victory will always be
us just sitting around
time is an anchor
he tossed overboard
equality was his breath and
he breathed it continuously
there was something about him
that we’ll never know
he was that way in all ways
and we always knew
he never let on and
we’ll never know
his boots were leaking
and his body was swaying
they stopped his breath
but his beat keeps on beating
his life was the question
that answered the answer
his rigorous approach was
masked in a carnival
shut-up you dullards
and give him the floor
and give him the ceiling
the windows, the door
and the Tribes are all Gathering
he belongs to them all
and stay out of his way
as he mows us all down
and he keeps on walking
as we all lie down
and we kneel at his gravestone
but don’t heed his demands
he was asking of us to
give the way he did
now you must decide how
your life you will live
he had nothing to die for
but he died for us anyway
he had everything to live for
but he gave it all away
now that it’s over
he says you begin
now that he’s gone
you welcome him in
there’s no one like him
so it must be him
and the tribes are all gathering
as we sit on the rim
on the edge, on the verge
as we gather around him
your communities need you and
Steve is beside you
ride off in the sunset and
and pull the night o’er you
take off your blinders
sing a new horizon
there’s nothing more to say
so now go ignore him
and he keeps it going
in the silence that follows
in the silence that follows
he keeps going on