Today, on the eighth day till the end of 2020, let’s spend a moment, if you have it, with poet Miguel Algarín. Like Naomi Long Madgett and Natan Zach, he died this past November.
Today is also Christmas Eve, a day of anticipation, and so Algarín ‘s poem “Not Tonight but Tomorrow” seems just the thing. I left the poem in three places, the first one, featured below, on a telephone pole in a neighborhood in Detroit.
Not Tonight but Tomorrow (1978)
by Miguel Algarín
Not tonight but tomorrow
when the light turns the peach
tree green and the Earth sprouts
its young leaves looking to repeat
the magical mystery tour of
photosynthetic conversion of light
and moisture into life—
Not tonight but tomorrow
when my body will have shed
its fear of turning old and soft
will I turn my speeding mind
into the tunnels of your psyche
to melt the calcium that constipates
your synapses into a lubricating powder—
Not tonight but tomorrow
when the Universe moves on
beyond the field of action
that is the Earth to me and you
will I discover the interplanetary clues
that signal the roots of my moment to you—
Not tonight but tomorrow
will I throw my feelings into
New York streets to stew
in the violence and despair
of our planet—
Not tonight but tomorrow
will the Earth turn green again.
I’m short on time this Christmas Eve, so this post will be photo-heavy and text-brief.
There’s a lot going on in this poem and I’m not sure I get all the particulars. . . science and metaphysics were never my bag . . . but without understanding every phrase, I feel the energy of the speaker, spilling over line by line. I feel his hope. Are there more hopeful words than “Not tonight but tomorrow”? It’s what I leave you with on this Christmas Eve. And a few pictures.
I taped another copy of the poem near the entrance to the emergency room at our local hospital. (It was impossible to get nearer without paying for parking.)
Like everyone else, I am grateful to and concerned for our health care workers and for their patients struggling to survive. A prayer (or a wish if you like) for them in the dark of a winter pandemic surge—
Not tonight but tomorrow
will the Earth turn green again.
I gave a third copy to a man named Terrence who I met delivering a different poem (“Midway”) in downtown Detroit. You see him here, he has no gloves, and it was cold.
“Can I keep it?” he asked. Maybe he was humoring me, but he seemed glad to have it. When I told him it was a poem about hope, he said, “I can use some of that.”
Can’t we all? Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. I’ll be back next week.
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Short bio because there’s lots of cooking to do. Link here for a good obituary. He had a big, impactful life.
Miguel Algarín was born in Puerto Rico in 1941. His family moved to New York City in 1950. He got his bachelors from University of Wisconsin, his masters at Pennsylvania State University and his PhD in comparative literature at Rutgers, where he later taught Shakespeare.
He started a salon of sorts in his East Village apartment, and needing more space, opened the Nuyorican Poets Café on the lower east side. It became a famous and beloved performance space.
He died at age 79.
Note: The majority of pictures of Algarín show him laughing. Must have been a lovely fellow.