Tyree Daye is a poet from Youngsville, North Carolina. He is the author of two poetry collections: River Hymns (2017 APR/Honickman First Book Prize winner) and Cardinal (forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press, 2020). Daye is a 2017 Ruth Lilly Finalist and Cave Canem fellow. Daye’s work has been published in Prairie Schooner, New York Times, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. Daye won the 2019 Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellowship, the 2019 Diana and Simon Raab Writers-In- Residence and is a 2019 Kate Tufts Finalist.---------
Undreamed (Mother’s Voice)
undreamed my mother’s tragedies
what escapes from the soles of feet in a soybean field
undreamed my father
who in the end must’ve built his own tombstone
undreamed my son
buried beside my wingless brother
undreamed the south giving me this tobacco to grow alongside of
though I had to find my own water
a sun to darken my round face
I can’t hate a place
my grandmother is buried
beside my other dead in rows
I want the blue dreams of birds
but not their looking eyes
I want my head to bow when I sleep
as if in a prayer
only the winged knew