i have a feeling for it,
that’s why i can talk
about environment.
what wants to be a tree,
ought to be he can be it.
same thing for other things.
same thing for men.
■
the lost baby poem
the time i dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city
and run one with the sewage to the sea
what did i know about waters rushing back
what did i know about drowning
or being drowned
you would have been born in winter
in the year of the disconnected gas
and no car we would have made the thin
walk over genesee hill into the canada wind
to watch you slip like ice into strangers’ hands
you would have fallen naked as snow into winter
if you were here i could tell you these
and some other things
if i am ever less than a mountain
for your definite brothers and sisters
let the rivers pour over my head
let the sea take me for a spiller
of seas let black men call me stranger
always for your never named sake
■
apology
(to the panthers)
i became a woman
during the old prayers
among the ones who wore
bleaching cream to bed
and all my lessons stayed
i was obedient
but brothers i thank you
for these mannish days
i remember again the wise one
old and telling of suicides
refusing to be slaves
i had forgotten and
brothers i thank you
i praise you
i grieve my whiteful ways
■
lately
everybody i meet
is a poet.
“Look here”
said the tall delivery man
who is always drunk
“whoever can do better
ought to do it. Me,
I’m 25 years old
and all the white boys
my age
are younger than me.”
so saying
he dropped a six pack
turned into most of my cousins
and left.
■
listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
keep it all ways
we have never hated black
listen
we have been ashamed
hopeless tired mad
but always
all ways
we loved us
we have always loved each other
children all ways
pass it on
■
the news
everything changes the old
songs click like light bulbs
going off the faces
of men dying scar the air
the moon becomes the mountain
who would have thought
who would believe
dead things could stumble back
and kill us
■
the bodies broken on
the trail of tears
and the bodies melted
in middle passage
are married to rock and
ocean by now
and the mountains crumbling on
white men
the waters pulling white men down
sing for red dust and black clay
good news about the earth
■
song
sons of slaves and
daughters of masters
all come up from the
ocean together
daughters of slaves and
sons of masters
all ride out on the
empty air
brides and hogs and dogs and babies
close their eyes against the sight
bricks and sticks and diamonds witness
a life of death is the death of life
■
africa
home
oh
home
the soul of your
variety
all of my bones
remember
■
earth
here is where it was dry
when it rained
and also
here
under the same
what was called
tree
it bore varicolored
flowers children bees
all this used to be a
place once all this
was a nice place
once
■
God send easter
and we will lace the
jungle on
and step out
brilliant as birds
against the concrete country
feathers waving as we
dance toward jesus
sun reflecting mango
and apple as we
glory in our skin
■
so close
they come so close
to being beautiful
if they had hung on
maybe five more years
we would have been together
for these new things
and for them old niggers
to have come so close oh
seem like some black people
missed out even more than
all the time
■
poem for my sisters
like he always said
the things of daddy
will find him
leg to leg and
lung to lung
and the man who
killed the bear
so we could cross the mountain
will cross it whole
and holy
“all goodby ain’t gone”
■
Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival
November 1973
for Margaret Walker Alexander
I
Hey Nikki
wasn’t it good, wasn’t it good June
Carole wasn’t it good, wasn’t it good Alice
Carolyn wasn’t it good, Audre wasn’t it good
wasn’t it good Sonia, sister wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t it good Margaret, wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t it good Linda, Mari wasn’t it good
wasn’t it good Margaret, wasn’t it good Naomi
wasn’t it good Sarah, sister wasn’t it good?
Hey Gloria, Jobari wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t it good Malaika, wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t it good sister, wasn’t it good sister,
Sister, sisters, sisters, oh sisters,
oh ain’t it good?
II
What Nikki knows
Jesus Keep Me is
what kept me and
How I Got Over is
how we got over.
III
to Margaret and Gwen
Mama
two dozen daughters stand together
holding hands and singing cause
you such a good mama we
got to be good girls.
■
in salem
to jeanette
weird sister
the black witches know that
the terror is not in the moon
choreographing the dance of wereladies
and the terror is not in the broom
swinging around to the hum of cat music
nor the wild clock face grinning from the wall,
th
e terror is in the plain pink
at the window
and the hedges moral as fire
and the plain face of the white woman watching us
as she beats her ordinary bread.
■
salt
for sj and jj
he is as salt
to her,
a strange sweet
a peculiar money
precious and valuable
only to her tribe,
and she is salt
to him,
something that rubs raw
that leaves a tearful taste
but what he will
strain the ocean for and
what he needs.
■
new bones
we will wear
new bones again.
we will leave
these rainy days,
break out through
another mouth
into sun and honey time.
worlds buzz over us like bees,
we be splendid in new bones.
other people think they know
how long life is
how strong life is.
we know.
■
harriet
if i be you
let me not forget
to be the pistol
pointed
to be the madwoman
at the rivers edge
warning
be free or die
and isabell
if i be you
let me in my
sojourning
not forget
to ask my brothers
ain’t i a woman too
and
grandmother
if i be you
let me not forget to
work hard
trust the Gods
love my children and
wait.
■
roots
call it our craziness even,
call it anything.
it is the life thing in us
that will not let us die.
even in death’s hand
we fold the fingers up
and call them greens and
grow on them,
we hum them and make music.
call it our wildness then,
we are lost from the field
of flowers, we become
a field of flowers.
call it our craziness
our wildness
call it our roots,
it is the light in us
it is the light of us
it is the light, call it
whatever you have to,
call it anything.
■
to ms. ann
i will have to forget
your face
when you watched me breaking
in the fields,
missing my children.
i will have to forget
your face
when you watched me carry
your husband’s
stagnant water.
i will have to forget
your face
when you handed me
your house
to make a home,
and you never called me sister
then, you never called me sister
and it has only been forever and
i will have to forget your face.
■
last note to my girls
for sid, rica, gilly and neen
my girls
my girls
my almost me
mellowed in a brown bag
held tight and straining
at the top
like a good lunch
until the bag turned weak and wet
and burst in our honeymoon rooms.
we wiped the mess and
dressed you in our name and
here you are
my girls
my girls
forty quick fingers
reaching for the door.
i command you to be
good runners
to go with grace
go well in the dark and
make for high ground
my dearest girls
my girls
my more than me.
■
a visit to gettysburg
i will
touch stone
yes i will
teach white rock to answer
yes i will
walk in the wake
of the battle sir
while the hills
and the trees
and the guns watch me
a touchstone
and i will rub
“where is my black blood
and black bone?”
and the grounds
and the graves
will throw off they clothes
and touch stone
for this touchstone.
■
this morning
(for the girls of eastern high school)
this morning
this morning
i met myself
coming in
a bright
jungle girl
shining
quick as a snake
a tall
tree girl a
me girl
i met myself
this morning
coming in
and all day
i have been
a black bell
ringing
i survive
survive
survive
■
the lesson of the falling leaves
the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
■
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
■
turning
turning into my own
turning on in
to my own self
at last
turning out of the
white cage, turning out of the
lady cage
turning at last
on a stem like a black fruit
in my own season
at last
■
my poem
a love person
from love people
out of the afrikan sun
under the sign of cancer.
whoever see my
midnight smile
seeing star apple and
mango from home.
whoever take me for
a negative thing,
his death be on him
like a skin
and his skin
be his heart’s revenge.
■
lucy one-eye
she got her mama’s ways.
big round roller
can’t cook
can’t clean
if that’s what you want
you got it world.
lucy one-eye
she see the world sideways.
word foolish
she say what she don’t want
to say, she don’t say
what she want to.
lucy one-eye
she won’t walk away
from it.
&
nbsp; she’ll keep on trying
with her crooked look
and her wrinkled ways,
the darling girl.
■
if mama
could see
she would see
lucy sprawling
limbs of lucy
decorating the
backs of chairs
lucy hair
holding the mirrors up
that reflect odd
aspects of lucy.
if mama
could hear
she would hear
lucysong rolled in the
corners like lint
exotic webs of lucysighs
long lucy spiders explaining
to obscure gods.
if mama
could talk
she would talk
good girl
good girl
good girl
clean up your room.
■
i was born in a hotel,
a maskmaker.
my bones were knit by
a perilous knife.
my skin turned around
at midnight and
i entered the earth in
a woman jar.
i learned the world all
wormside up
and this is my yes
my strong fingers;
i was born in a bed of
good lessons
and it has made me
wise.
■
light
on my mother’s tongue
breaks through her soft
extravagant hip
into life.
lucille
she calls the light,
which was the name
of the grandmother
who waited by the crossroads
in virginia
and shot the whiteman off his horse,
killing the killer of sons.
light breaks from her life
to her lives …
mine already is
an afrikan name.
■
cutting greens
curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
How to Carry Water Page 3
