Darius Phelps

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Exegesis of the Cardinal

I heard the cardinal before I saw him—
his scarlet note rupturing the morning’s hush,
the way my grandfather’s absence inhabits the house
like a moth in the light-bulb, trembling.
I name him: the red plume of memory that rises
from the ash-heap of unspoken grief,
a sentinel perched on the edge of my broken altar,
wing-tip flickering prayers into the ceiling beams
where the sorrow accumulates like dust.

In that same breath I lift the shell of my body,
feel the echo of a hymn composed of wounds:
the cradle of the teacher’s desk, the chalk-dust
clouds in fluorescent classrooms, the midnight
buzz of gospel thin hope flickering out.
& I remember how I carved our forgiveness
out of the limestone of my youth—
the way tremors trace the fault-line of my ribs
when I speak the name: cardinal.

Now I walk through this body like a battlefield,
unearthing the hymn-bones of my ancestors,
picking at the rusted nails of resistant silences:
because the finest things are not always visible,
not always soft. They crack like glass under
the weight of truth.They unfurl like wings in the dusk,
singing red songs into the wound-light,
& I raise my voice in a guttural offering,
not for the lost but for the surviving.
Because tenderness is not license to forget,
but a defiant hymn to remember
how a cardinal can carry a grandfather’s grief
across winter’s long approximation of death
into the unclaimed field of spring.

Darius Phelps (he/him) is the author of My God’s Been Silent (Writ Large Press, 2026) and The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh (Kith Books, 2026). A poet before anything else, his work bears witness to grief, faith, and the act of becoming—offering language as a form of liberation and light. Through the lens of poetic inquiry, Dr. Phelps explores how verse can function as pedagogy, healing and survival. Rooted in Black literary traditions and personal testimony, his work has been featured or is forthcoming in  Frozen Sea, wildness, Diode, Tupelo Quarterly, Matter Monthly, Cultural Daily, Een Magazine, School Library Journal, and many more.  He lives in Brooklyn, NY.