i. Mood Indigo by Ntozake Shange

i. Mood Indigo

by: Ntozake Shange

it hasnt always been this way

ellington was not a street

robeson no mere memory

du bois walked up my father’s stairs

hummed some tune over me

sleeping in the company of men

who changed the world

 

it wasnt always like this

why ray barretto used to be a side-man

& dizzy’s hair was not always grey

i remember            i was there

i listened in the company of men

politics as necessary as collards

music even in our dreams

 

our house was filled with all kinda folks

our windows were not cement or steel

our doors opened like our daddy’s arms

held us safe & loved

children growing in the company of men

old southern men & young slick ones

sonny til was not a boy

the clovers no rag-tag orphans

our crooners/ we belonged to a whole world

nkrumah was no foreigner

virgil aikens was not the only fighter

 

it hasnt always been this way

ellington was not a street

As I grow older, I find more and more of the people that I grew up with (in real life, on the radio, on TV, on my computer,) are passing out of memory--either because they've actually passed away, or because time just keeps moving ever forward.  Lately I've been thinking about this a lot as I read news stories about how Gen Z (the Zommers) have declared skinny jeans and laughing-crying face emojis are out.  It's a strange thing to see the next generation as they come into their own, forging their own paths forward, leaving us behind.

I love this poem because it is a retrospective of past memories that were once truths.  I like the way it flows--that pause in the line:

i remember            i was there

somehow transporting us back to that time and place.  I love, too, that the title of this poem is also the title of a Duke Ellington song called "Mood Indigo."  The music and the poem flow along together in my mind--the words a happy reminiscence.  And then those last two lines bring us back to the present once more.

I feel as though this poem speaks of a time when there were powerful black men and women who led the conversations in the world, paving a road forward for justice and equality.  And maybe there's some rueful reckoning with rap music--the times and the way black people express themselves in music also changing.  There is a sadness to the words as they recall past glories, but also this magical rekindling of those "moments when."  And there is also a longing in them, too, for things that have passed--childhood, people, places....

I love how easily Shange brings all of those feelings together with her words, giving us a song to hear in the background as they're read.  I love the sense of renewal I get when I read the words, imagining a world in which such things were true.  And I love that by taking something inanimate--a street with a name, and making it animate once more, we are invited to remember the voices and the songs of our own past--to relive the wonder of them even as we derive strength from them; these are the memories that have made us, and they are so much more than a street name.

Perhaps this is something we all go through as we age, and I imagine when the Zommers give way to the next generation, they, too, will feel that strange, inevitable force of forward time and write reminiscences of those days when they were young and surrounded by such magic.