How To (Hair) Esperanza Spalding

Through my hair I'm still picking the hulls
Of Europe rained down in scattered handfuls
Their seed-meat shriveled to a hollow rattling
Striking this already ringing land

Resonance choked by pale tendrils shooting off
From long lost roots once locked in nature
The stubbled senses ingrown now where crusader blades shore
And donned them empty-headed beneath the bishop's cap
Shameless scratching at the uncombed earth
Raking the godhead righteous

Silence in their wake
Silence in straight lines hanging from settler heads
Straight silence gathered, braided together, in tails
Pony, pig and whip, straight through the rumbling frequencies
Of boat bowels and cramped cabins
The species underneath each scalp identical after all
Night-tone mother and her light newborn
Curling each other flat and tight into our tangled sound

Muted howl
Song of blue flame
The brilliant headed silhouettes
Scuffling candles through a nation's lightless dawn
Kindling fires, mass I must wake to