A young poet's tribute to Muhammad Ali

Listen to the audio recording

For Muhammad, The Peaceful:
I Feel Your Thunder

training camp
(deer lake)

When I was a child, dwarfed by the world, I dreamt of the Gigantic things of life: Endless rivers, sky dyed blue throughout the depth of their fabric. Eagles in flight. Damp mornings and cool midnight. And I dreamt of Muhammad Ali.

Eleven years old on that cricket-songed September night, listening to the radio, with all the hopes of my world playing symphony and rift in my chest, with my father, leaning, like a child will, with my need for salvation, upon every word uttered by the broadcaster, upon every surge and sigh of the crowd as somewhere distant my beloved Ali stood the stage, sweated pores turning back the page, muzzling the youthful rage of Spinks, the Leon one. Ali in that moment was the father, I was the son, waiting by the window in the face of the storm, my whole world resting on whether father could come through.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a unanimous decision . . .

I, the son slept the sleep of peace, for father Ali had indeed come through. I was released.

I was the slender Black boy filled to the rim with rage, feeling captive in a white reality with no place for my tears to run, but then mother gave me boxing gloves and my destiny was set. I would become whatever the mystical thing was that was my beloved Ali. I would reach there yet. Multiplying hours in the basement ripping old brown leather into the red Everlast heavy bag, I loved the sweat that I poured out in those moments, ‘cause it felt as if my pain and anger were seeping out with the wet. I grunted, and raged, and hooked and raged, and jabbed and ducked and danced. A million times over I was Ali. I was entranced. I told sis’, remember this: I will be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. I will stand like Ali with right arm cocked in splendor over a fallen Liston, and I will glisten with glory. Sis’, I will create the truth to this allegory.

And I repeated the words so often throughout my life that it became my destination, my preordained fantastical occupation: 

The winner, and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world . . .

Through television, boxing magazines, and books I soaked up Muhammad’s world—Bugner and the Cleveland fellow and Frazier with his hooks. I saw Ali’s jaw bloat up, I saw the beatings he took. But he always rose, and I can’t express what that means in a world where people always take to the easy and crawl on their backside.

But I want to go deeper:

the fight
(15 rounds)

I care only about the essence of a person, and so the reasons for celebrity to me are a thin screen. I do not idolize. But there are two persons in the history of this human earth for whom my admiration is so intense, my Love so deep, that I weep.

There is the migrant Nazarene.
And there is Muhammad Ali.
He is my epiphany.

The gentle, giving spirit who once was labeled Cassius Clay, then grew like any sturdy stock would and came to know itself, and so named itself, and told the world, “My name is Muhammad Ali.” And I, having named myself to the world while also in my twenties, find Ali as my inspiration, for this world treats a person’s name as its own property, and there is courage and resilience in the stock that holds firm against such wind.

Ali has claimed spirituality as his garden place and tends to it well. There I also dwell. He has given, most likely to the extent that others have taken to his detriment, but the truth behind his giving heart is what his spirit will ultimately to a Greater Spirit impart,

such a glorious, giving heart.

And if I in my passage upon this lifetime page can give so much of myself, so deeply draw from my own well, then I know Ali would be proud, and what greater accomplishment than to draw praise from one praised in ritual by the world?

When they would say, he stands six foot-three and two-twenty, young I, having grown to the same would say, that’s also me! And though I came to play collegiate basketball, boxing remained faithfully domesticated within my heart, so I spent my own time living that burning need. I fought on that hallowed canvas place between the turnbuckles and with an eighty-four inch reach and a natural cadence, I danced my way well into the pugilist’s light. But ultimately I came to know my larger purpose on this human earth, and so I parted from my twelve-ounce-fisted flame, but the passion remained all the same.

the icedown
(afterglow)

I know that I am to move the world through written words, and now I am at the edge of a great divide. On the other side, though, Ali and I will meet, for the sheer dominance of our souls will be our common ground. I will visit his garden place and he will frequent my literary mist profound, and on life and peacefulness we will expound, for it is his bottomless reservoir of peace that the world has sensed like hounds on the hunt, has drawn in from the scent of it pooled in the pockets of his pores, have hypnotized to through the gaze of his regal eyes, eyes that hit you like thunder, eyes that stand out like Kentucky clouds with God peeking through. And his smile, humble and conserving energy like a wise sage pacing itself like Ali did before he fell Foreman like a mighty African forest tree, eyes rocking in the chair of his face like a Grandfather who knows he has done this thing which is life well and now is content to melodize by rocking back and forth across the grain of the porch,

watching butterflies dance.

Yes, this earth, peopled by humble souls not blessed in some of the ways he has been blessed, yet blessed enough to recognize that Ali has hit the jackpot of blessings. We feel, through his presence, worthy of stealing on the cape of his majesty toward the lottery of risk and courage that might encumber our own heroism by living in ways that would lead the world’s children to run with us, as they do with him, upon dusty roads in every corner of the globe, children of every ethnic truth running as if life no longer need bring gifts because to run with Ali is the end of the gift unwrapping, is simply the post-feast, pre-nap cool and mellow contentment place.

I am now a twenty-seven year-old, proudest of proud human being, and Black man, and for this, I give Ali much thanks. People wide over do not understand the mystery which is the sweet science boxing, and so they find absolute fault, but I know this: Joe Luis lifted up Black people when our pride was tattered and dangling like a child from a ledge all these years from a national Black spirit eradication program. Joe Luis lifted up, with his oaken arms, Black folks from this precipice. We pushed our ears near to the radio on railroad cars, in the steam of railroad kitchens, in modest homes, at honest work, needing with every ounce of our remaining resolve, like I did once for Ali on that September cricket night, for Joe Luis to win the fight.

And Ali? His brilliant Love, his awesomely free presence on so enslaving a scene as this, his all of this, lifted up the whole of humanity from a similar precipice. So, yes, I owe him much thanks for my head now held high, sniffing out the magic out there in an Ali-luminescent sky.

I am now a writer, an educator, a professor of Howard University, the fabled halls, and in the corners of my reality always there is Ali. Ali as my measuring stick, leaning against the windows of my classroom, beckoning me to touch these sturdy sprouts, these young minds in the way that would make him proud. I can hear him, spirit-tripping, laughing and loud. And the man from the House of Shock, he is my bedding, my breakfast, my rock. As I fill this world with books, and stories, and child tales, with screenplays, theatre fill, and poetry, as I educate and reverberate across space to coincide with Ali’s dream of a human peace, a human glint on this earth that catches and momentarily blinds Great Spirit’s eyes, I shall always come back to my once-gloved warrior, now more admirable to me in his simple living, perhaps not dancing with Young, Norton, Shavers, and the crew, but still satisfying our craving with his Ali air, his perfect spirit hue.

I will always strive for that plateau which none have yet reached, but even when I capture that virgin ground, human beings will not frown, for I will have glimpsed Ali in the windows of my classroom, and I will have measured my ascendance by the degree of my Ali humility, by the amount of soreness in my arms and ache in my body from this ministry of embracing the children of the world, and the child spirit in every soul, and from the creases encircling my mouth, left like proud tracks by the smiles I have given and gotten in return, to and from people in worn-out shoes, to and from people in castles and suits, and the purity I will have maintained in my heart, where it all starts, devoid of human prejudice, will be my offering plate after I have crossed the spirit world divide, and I stand facing a temple-shattering wind with Ali on my side.

Oh, Great Spirit,
how I Love this man.

Children, Ladies and Gentlemen, the winner by unanimous decision,
and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world,
Muhammad Ali!

Jaiya John

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JAIYA JOHN'S
THE GATHERING.
A WORLD TOUR.

a poetry reading ceremony and
book collection sale and signing

Upcoming tour dates:

APRIL 26 and 27. Navajo Nation (tickets)

I am excited to join you in your community to read from my collection of 19 books and unpublished work, bringing to life the spirit of the medicine words. I say reading, though incantation and prayer are truer. Thematically, these readings are on collective freedom, and take on the flavor of each audience from gathering to gathering. A rich weaving of cultural fabric. These gatherings center Indigenous, marginalized, dehumanized people and communities, and are remembrance songs, bringing us back to our Indigenous ancestral ways of gathering and being together. As this tour is part of my global Soul Water Rising rehumanizing mission, we stir the soul to remember itself as we garden our collective liberation and the end of oppressive systems and ways of life.

I am also honored to include, at some of the gatherings, live Sacred Conversations with revolutionary souls who inspire me. During these gatherings, I also commune with the audience in questions and conversation. And we build into this healing experience what we are calling Aftercare. After the reading, we care for each other as I make myself available for sacred listening and embraces, tears and laughter, photos, and book collection purchasing and signing.

As a part of Soul Water Rising's Book Angel Project, whether or not you attend a particular gathering, you have the opportunity to purchase books that we then gift to vulnerable souls with whom we gather along the tour.

The Gathering is a people's freedom movement. The tour is happening in cafés, bookstores, libraries, prisons, hospitals, shelters, community centers, women's centers, college campuses, HBCU's, Indigenous reservations, art galleries, art studios, museums, parks, amphitheaters, auditoriums, theaters, festivals, and stadiums. Call out to us. We go where we are called.

You can play an organic role in this. If you desire for the tour to come your way, email me through our tour page at jaiyajohn.com. You or someone you know may be able to help identify aligned venues, communities, and audiences.

Tour dates and locations are announced on a rolling calendar as sites are secured. This tour is a culmination, crystallizing, and new season of my life's journey, work, and calling. I am awed and enchanted to read for you and embrace you in a healing way.

We will see each other soon, in Love, at The Gathering.

Big Love,
Jaiya                                      

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My books are available at booksellers worldwide and directly from the author at jaiyajohn.com (eBooks are exclusively at my site). Thank you for posting your copies, readings, and creative images and videos, and for sharing online reviews. It all breathes life into a book's life. I hope you will gift these books to your people.

Also at jaiyajohn.com, enjoy my books, eBooks, audiobooks, talks, sleep stories, and piano music. I also offer creative writing support phone sessions, keynote speaking, talks, and book/poetry readings.

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