Harryette Mullen
DEEP AND WIDE
I think and I wonder what I am…
–Abbey Lincoln
Lion and eagle
patrol savannah and sky.
Teeth and talons rule.
We won’t hear you roar
or watch as you soar, rapt in
a dream deep and wide.
Lion’s pride, eagle’s
ascent to commanding height
far from down below.
Seafarer, ever
adventurous diver who
navigates blue depths
alone in a song
where life abides, you’ve tumbled
under rougher waves,
ocean’s hypnotic
composure luring you to
nature’s deeper blue.
CONCRETE STEPS
Easy material for building cheaply, demand rising more steeply than wood, stone, or steel. Surviving wars and natural disasters, outlasting the empire that erected them, concrete achievements cementing an enduring legacy. Rome’s Pantheon, aqueducts, and Colosseum, still standing as we follow ancient footsteps. Grand tours of aspiring architects and urban planners inspiring durable landscapes of concrete and rebar, poured cement sidewalks portending the colossal footprint of contemporary living.
Now seeking concrete solutions. Controlling missions, racing to contain. Chasing results, exhausting patience. Removing undesirable particulars. Emerging players making a racket. Calculating change, our capital execution awaiting the outcome of a trial sequester. Jurors out on ventures hedging captured assets. Facing hard decisions, taking concrete steps, even if we wade into deep murky water wearing cement shoes.
PEN NAME
With persistent practice, I perfect my penmanship, gradually improving childish scribbles with the yellow Ticonderoga, becoming incrementally legible, if I have to write down every pencil in Pennsylvania. Starting with the alphabet parade, I train my hand to dot my little i’s and cross my Texas t’s.
In time, like thoughts, fingers fly, quick as blues on the move from Alabama to Chicago. Then, lassoing the letters of a name that sprawls in cursive loopy-loops across the page, I copy myself copying, selecting at last a signature scrawl.
Putting fluent pen to paper authorizes free and clear expression, as stirring words circulate in public squares to penetrate the private sphere. In pending matters, if I get stuck wrestling the California porcupine, I’m not pinned down to rebut prickly opinions, needling insults, stinging barbs. Protecting priceless assets, I incorporate myself, notarize the pages, signing my autograph with a quill.
DERECHO
It’s a straight line, the squall line, in one direction without correction. Unlike a twisting, turning tornado, pirouetting demon-dancer whipping up disasters of rotating wind, derecho doesn’t skip or twirl but storms dead ahead, making forward advances. A militant force, relentless battle line of thunderous destruction, striking all in its path, leaving only the wretches and the wrecks that echo in the stretch of derecho. This driving, raging windstorm always has the right of way, so stay out of the way of derecho.
BOMB CYCLONE
You realize you are at war when the Weather Channel warns that a bomb cyclone is heading your way. If the climate turns against you, and weather declares war, then whether you wish it or not, you are forced to fight back. When the elements threaten aggression, launching cold war weapons of mass destruction, you are pushed to respond for your self-preservation. Under attack, in a state of alarm, you’re compelled to develop sophisticated defenses, technological advances, variations on the traditional tactic of firing empty cannons at the sky.
Harryette Mullen’s books include Regaining Unconsciousness (Graywolf, 2025), Her Silver-Tongued Companion (Edinburgh University, 2024) Open Leaves (Black Sunflowers, 2023), Urban Tumbleweed (Graywolf, 2013), Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006), and Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California, 2002), as well as a collection of essays and interviews, The Cracks Between (University of Alabama, 2012). She teaches creative writing, American poetry, and African American literature at UCLA.
