I choose to celebrate with Yusef Komunyakaa's "Ode to a Drum," in which an African hunter addresses the gazelle he uses to feed his family and to make a drum. Assembling the instrument, the speaker recreates a living body to carry the song of lost ghosts (perhaps stolen by slave ships). But the drum's transforming power also binds its listeners in a powerful circle. It beats trouble from the land. By poem's end, it's a triumphant panther.Gazelle, I killed you
from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice
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