Mad Woman of Harvard

It has been my pleasure during May to spotlight the Guyanese-Canadian poet, Cyril Dabydeen.  Below is another Cyril Dabydeen poem, Mad Woman of Harvard, which I hope you will find interesting. Have you read any of Cyril Dabydeen's poems? If yes, what are your thoughts on this poet? I would love to hear from you.

Stay tuned in June for poet Kwame Dawes.

Mad Woman of Harvard

As if flies are after her,
she flits incessantly
with a thin-leafed book,
this woman, grey-haired,
a long brown coat draping

her frail body. She walks
swiftly to another tree,
swats, then struts off again,
waging her wars; she turns,
looking around,

seeing me, she with fierce eyes,
my spirit oddly in tune with hers.
A couple close by also look at her,
amused at her cryptic smiles, Eumenides
dogging her path. The mind's weakness,

I say, my own, with this longing for knowledge.
She cries out deep inside at the dim sun's
rays. "You there, it's no good watching
other people - you in the dark glasses!"
A scholar's grimace, all on green grass

splayed out as I am, alert
to other traumas, other worlds, as
she keeps marching up and down,
all words waywardly expressed, if you must
know, or keep thinking about, always.

(Harvard University Campus, August 1986)

From Imaginary Origins. Selected Poems 1970-2002.

Copyright Cyril Dabydeen 2004. Reprinted with author's permission.