How to Carry Water

by How to Carry Water- Selected Poems (retail) (epub)

  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,