Poem For Octavia E. Butler

I had the privilege of meeting Octavia E. Butler at an appearance at Bus Boys and Poets in Washington, DC about 3 months before her untimely death. There she read from and signed copies of her last novel, "Fledgling".


the cringe of her voice
gnaws at insides
an echoing scratch
raking over ears
like a pulsing tide
unsettles silt

she was not of this world
nor were her tales

obsidian rubble.
granite chunks
refusing decay

those tales lent themselves
only to the leaves
lining shelves
while we swarmed to decipher
prophecies bound by an Ancestor
in 1st person

(doro
anyanwu
lilith
lauryn
shori
dana
blake)

she wrote clean prose
with a jagged edge
it drew first blood
of predictions
present, past, beyond

that voice
an angled tenor
the crunch
of unpaved road
chalk on school recess cement
like incisors grinding metal spokes
of ferris wheels

the swallowing of
a parallel universe.

another world's
ether.
that voice...
my God.

© 2010, B. Sharise Moore

Filed Under: Poetry