Carolyn Marie Rodgers (December 14, 1940 – April 2, 2010) was a Chicago-based writer and poet.
ETHIOPIA
Carolyn Marie Rogers Ethiopia
cradle of the Black Madonna, oh
dark Maria—
hunger falls on you
like a gardener’s rake falls
on rich, black soil,
for growing crops, but instead of harvests,
you weep for rain, hunger, and you birth death.
your children are
pop-eyed, bird-eyed little Lazaruses,
scarecrow limp,
bodies, testaments to emptiness,
eating itself full to death.
=====
SIGNS OF LIFE AFTER EDEN
Carolyn Marie Rogers
She might as well have been
an oven
baking sweet wheat, brown berry bread
the way we watched her, from
the first moment she told us, we waited
and watched,
watched and waited.
Flat.
Like unleavened bread
she was at first,
until it seemed incredulous, hardly
possible to believe that any
thing was inside of her
but what is inside us all.
But before too long
we knew we were wrong.
She swelled.
She rose up to the occasion
like dawn.
Like the first beautiful morning
after
the
fall.