"For Amiri Baraka"

By Diane di Prima

don' matter was it
yr left foot went bad
or yr right
don' matter yr lungs
or yr heart
don' matter if that
mass
on yr liver was
malignant
or what's been wrong
so long
w/yr kidneys
don't matter
drugs
or herbs
or acupuncture
or why you didn't
go
to those appointments
don't matter how much you drank
or if you drank
don't matter you did or you didn't
take drugs
meaning meds
or take drugs
meaning drugs
what matters now
what matters &
what's gonna matter
a hundred
a thousand years
what matters when
what we wrote
what we thought
is lost
(& don't kid yourself,
Ginsberg
it's all of it
gonna be lost)
what matters:
every place
you read
every line
you wrote
every dog-eared book
or pamphlet
on somebody's shelf
every skinny hopeful kid
you grinned that grin at
while they said
they thought they could write
they thought they could fight
they knew for sure
they could change the world
every human dream
you heard
or inspired
after the book-signing
after the reading
after one more
unspeakable
faculty dinner
after that god-awful flight
& the drive to the school
what matters:
the memory
of the poem
in thousands of minds
that quantum
of energy
passed over
passed
all the way over
to the other
to thousands
of others
what matters
Revolution
what matters
Revelation
what matters
the poem
taking root in
thousands
of minds ...