Philip Levine/the narrator employs chalk as a metaphor for aging and death, and its blackboard tracings as the tracings of memory. He endows the Senegalese man--probably deranged--with dignity. Rather than avoiding him, as most people would, he stops to listen to him and to reflect on their shared humanity. A beautiful and unusual poem that could be discussed along with Lucille Clifton’s Miss Rosie (in this database annotated by Felice Aull and also by Lois Nixon).
The collection in which this poem appears won the Pulitzer Prize.