August 15: Heaven, Poet of the Week, Maya Angelou, "Preacher, Don't Send Me"

For some reason, Maya Angelou has been on my mind for the last few weeks or so.  It could be a television commercial that has been playing during the Olympics broadcasts, featuring Angelou's distinctive voice reading a poem about what unites us as a people.  It could be that every time I see Hillary Clinton in the newspaper or on TV, I think about her husband's first inauguration, when Angelou read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" in the clear January day, her words rising in clouds of breath.

I have featured Angelou as Poet of the Week before.  However, not to sound childish but . . . my blog, my rules.

It's a beautiful August night.  My daughter is out with her dance friends.  My son is in need of a bath after a day of dirt and sweat.  My wife is working, and I have half a bottle of wine at home.  It's going to be a good night.  Not heaven.  I'll leave that to Angelou tonight.

Saint Marty is hoping to find some leftover Cheetos.  That would be heaven.

Preacher, Don't Send Me

by:  Maya Angelou

when I die
to some big ghetto
in the sky
where rats eat cats
of the leopard type
and Sunday brunch
is grits and tripe.

I've known those rats
I've seen them kill
and grits I've had
would make a hill,
or maybe a mountain,
so what I need
from you on Sunday
is a different creed.

Preacher, please don't
promise me
streets of gold
and milk for free.
I stopped all milk
at four years old
and once I'm dead
I won't need gold.

I'd call a place
pure paradise
where families are loyal
and strangers are nice,
where the music is jazz
and the season is fall.
Promise me that
or nothing at all.