above shorn clouds of fleece
and some will feel their bodies break
but most will pass through this
into sweet clover
where all all will be sheltered safe
until the holy shearing
don’t think about the days to come
sweet meat
think of my arms
trust me
■
stop
what you are doing
stop
what you are not doing
stop
what you are seeing
stop
what you are not seeing
stop
what you are hearing
stop
what you are not hearing
stop
what you are believing
stop
what you are not believing
in the green hills
of hemingway
nkosi has died
again
and again
and again
stop
—for Nkosi Johnson
2/4/89–6/1/01
■
aunt jemima
white folks say i remind them
of home i who have been homeless
all my life except for their
kitchen cabinets
i who have made the best
of everything
pancakes batter for chicken
my life
the shelf on which i sit
between the flour and cornmeal
is thick with dreams
oh how i long for
my own syrup
rich as blood
my true nephews my nieces
my kitchen my family
my home
■
cream of wheat
sometimes at night
we stroll the market aisles
ben and jemima and me they
walk in front remembering this and that
i lag behind
trying to remove my chefs cap
wondering about what ever pictured me
then left me personless
Rastus
i read in an old paper
i was called rastus
but no mother ever
gave that to her son toward dawn
we return to our shelves
our boxes ben and jemima and me
we pose and smile i simmer what
is my name
■
sorrows
who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals
that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin
sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking
their bony fingers
they have heard me beseeching
as i whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again
but who can distinguish
one human voice
amid such choruses
of desire
■
this is what i know
my mother went mad
in my fathers house
for want of tenderness
this is what i know
some womens days
are spooned out
in the kitchen of their lives
this is why i know
the gods
are men
■
6/27/06
pittsburgh you in white
like the ghost
of all my desires my heart
stopped and renamed itself
i was thirty-six
today i am seventy my eyes
have dimmed from looking for you
my body has swollen from swallowing
so much love
■
birth-day
today we are possible.
the morning, green and laundry-sweet,
opens itself and we enter
blind and mewling.
everything waits for us:
the snow kingdom
sparkling and silent
in its glacial cap,
the cane fields
shining and sweet
in the sun-drenched south.
as the day arrives
with all its clumsy blessings
what we will become
waits in us like an ache.
■
mother-tongue: the land of nod
true, this isn’t paradise
but we come at last to love it
for the sweet hay and the flowers rising,
for the corn lining up row on row,
for the mourning doves who
open the darkness with song,
for warm rains
and forgiving fields,
and for how, each day,
something that loves us
tries to save us.
■
mother-tongue: we are dying
no failure in us
that we can be hurt like this,
that we can be torn.
death is a small stone
from the mountain we were born to.
we put it in a pocket
and carry it with us
to help us find our way home.
■
some points along some of the meridians
heart
spirit path
spirit gate
blue green spirit
little rushing in
utmost source
little storehouse
lung
very great opening
crooked marsh
cloud gate
middle palace
stomach
receive tears
great welcome
people welcome
heavenly pivot
earth motivator
abundant splendor
inner courtyard
liver
walk between
great esteem
happy calm
gate of hope
kidney
bubbling spring
water spring
great mountain stream
deep valley
spirit storehouse
spirit seal
spirit burial ground
chi cottage
large intestine
joining of the valleys
1st interval
2nd interval
heavenly shoulder bone
welcome of a glance
spleen
supreme light
great enveloping
encircling glory
sea of blood
3 yin crossing
gates
stone gate
gate of life
inner frontier gate
outer frontier gate
■
new orleans
when the body floated by me
on the river it was a baby
body thin and brown
it was not my alexandra
my noah
not even my river
it was a dream
but when i woke i knew
somewhere there is a space
in a grandmother’s sleep
if she can sleep
if she is alive
and i want her to know
that the baby is not abandoned
is in grandmothers hearts
and we will remember
forever
■
after the children died she started bathing
only once in a while
started spraying herself with ginger
trying to preserve what remained of her heart
but the body insists on truth.<
br />
she did not want to be clean
in such a difficult world
but there were other children
and she would not want me
to tell you this
■
In the middle of the Eye,
not knowing whether to call it
devil or God
I asked how to be brave
and the thunder answered,
“Stand. Accept.” so I stood
and I stood and withstood
the fiery sight.
Previously Uncollected Poems
“The world has writ the letter now, writ the letter now,’twas never wrote before.”
Lucille Clifton, age 10
All Praises
Praise impossible things
Praise to hot ice
Praise flying fish
Whole numbers
Praise impossible things.
Praise all creation
Praise the presence among us
Of the unfenced Is.
■
bouquet
i have gathered my losses
into a spray of pain;
my parents, my brother,
my husband, my innocence
all clustered together
durable as daisies.
now i add you,
little love, little
flower,
who walked unannounced
into my life
and almost blossomed there.
■
sam, jr.
blood of my mothers blood.
blood of my father
spilling onto the coverlet,
when you are dry this boy
my father watched
running through virginia fields
will be again a dream.
i thought i saw, he said,
a baby boy
running and laughing as he ran
and so i knew that i
would make a son. or break him
brother, and he almost did
but now you smile and bleed
the only blood i share
while i sit watching you run
to our parents there dreamlike
in a field.
■
MOTHER HERE IS MY CHILD
Here is a wreath that skips among the chimneys
flinging flowers
a daughter of the blood.
See she spies the heartsease you blossom
and calls me.
She calls me by your name.
A proper gift,
Sidney among the flowers
adorning you, being by you adorned.
■
Poem To My Yellow Coat
today i mourn my coat.
my old potato.
my yellow mother.
my horse with buttons.
my rind.
today she split her skin
like a snake,
refusing to excuse my back
for being big
for being old
for reaching toward other
cuffs and sleeves.
she cracked like a whip and
fell apart,
my terrible teacher to the end;
to hell with the arms you want
she hissed,
be glad when you’re cold
for the arms you have.
■
Poem With Rhyme
i was born yes.
i don’t know why.
i have been hated for it,
laughed at,
i have cried, me and my
black yes.
affirmation.
i wonder why i do it,
i can only guess i was
born to it. yes. yes. yes.
■
Rounding the curve near Ellicot City
another raccoon dead, his tail raised high
like a flagpole. Or was she a woman,
striped our sister, trying to reach Oella
which never changes? And did we charge,
my daughters and I, around the bend,
an army of fearless women wrapped in tin?
And does her tail, silent and stiff, signal Danger?
We feel around us, in Ellicot City, the accusation
of a forest of patchy eyes.
■
entering earth
the door is bone
push through
you will be
dressed in blood
rise up
and wobble off
toward cavalry
the ground time here
will be brief
before you remember
your actual name
you will have rattled
back to bone
hover above
the ivory gate
hold your body
in your hands
the ground time here
is brief
drop your framework down
and fly
it has fed you
it will feed your friends
■
to black poets
just cause you don’t see me
don’t mean i aint there.
when you be together
reading
and being together
and you feel something soft
rubbing you just like sisterskin
don’t turn off please,
thats me.
■
quartz lake, Alaska
deep autumn, and all the tourists have gone
south with the geese and fickle sun
only those things remain which can bear
the frown of winter: the ice stars,
the raven, the moon, and this solitude,
keeping their long faith with forsaken things.
the lake turns its cold face,
is no one’s mirror,
and the sky pouts back,
everything wakes and sleeps in forest time,
to the soft drum of wind
among the pines, to the snow forever falling and
the long dark bringing its constellations,
bright cruciforms against the sky
lighting the quiet way on snow
for winter migrations of caribou,
or wolf, or phantom grief moving out
and away in a silent
ritual of passage
■
Index of Poems
The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
africa
after kent state
after the children died she started bathing
alabama 9/15/63
All Praises
amazons
Anniversary 5/10/74
apology
april
as he was dying
astrologer predicts at mary’s birth, the
atlantic is a sea of bones
at last we killed the roaches
auction street
august
august the h
aunt jemima
begin here
being property once myself
birth-day
birthday 1999
blake
blessing the boats
blood
bouquet
breaklight
brothers
ca’line’s prayer
cancer
chemotherapy
children
cigarettes
coming of fox, the
cream of wheat
cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty
cutting greens
daughters
dear fox
death of fred clifton, the
death of joanne c., the
&n
bsp; death of thelma sayles, the
december 1989
dialysis
dream of foxes, a
each morning i pull myself
earth
earth is a living thing, the
11/10 again
entering earth
entering the south
enter my mother
evening and my dead once husband
Everytime i talk about
februrary 1980
1st, the
5/23/67 R.I.P.
flowers
for deLawd
further note to clark
fury
generations
gift, the
God send easter
grief
hag riding
hands
harriet
heaven
here yet be dragons
hometown 1993
am accused of tending to the past
am running into a new year
if i should
if i stand in my window
if mama
“i’m going back to my true identity”
in populated air
in salem
in the evenings
in the meantime
In the middle of the Eye
in the mirror
in the same week
in white america
i once knew a man
island mary
it was a dream
was born in a hotel
was born with twelve fingers
went to the valley
jasper texas 1998
june
killing of the trees, the
last note to my girls
lately
leaving fox
leda 1
leda 2
leda 3
lesson of the falling leaves, the
leukemia as white rabbit
libation
light
LIGHT
listen children
lorena
lost baby poem, the
lost women, the
lucy and her girls
lucy one-eye
lumpectomy eve
man and wife
mary mary astonished by God
memphis
message of jo, the
message of thelma sayles, the
mississippi river empties into the gulf, the
miss rosie
MOTHER HERE IS MY CHILD
mother, i am mad
mother’s story, the
mother-tongue: the land of nod
mother-tongue: we are dying
move
mulberry fields
How to Carry Water Page 10