Adonis Diaries

By: Gwendolyn Brooks

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:

will wait a week: will wait through April.

You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. 

Death can attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. 
Death is just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.

You need not die today.
Stay here--through pout or pain or peskiness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.

Note: In 1985, Brooks was the first black woman appointed as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a post now known as Poet Laureate.