The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010
Page 16
7
gloria mundi
so knowing,
what is known?
that we carry our baggage
in our cupped hands
when we burst through
the waters of our mother.
that some are born
and some are brought
to the glory of this world.
that it is more difficult
than faith
to serve only one calling
one commitment
one devotion
in one life.
brothers
(being a conversation in eight poems between an aged Lucifer and God, though only Lucifer is heard. The time is long after.)
1
invitation
come coil with me
here in creation’s bed
among the twigs and ribbons
of the past. i have grown old
remembering this garden,
the hum of the great cats
moving into language, the sweet
fume of man’s rib
as it rose up and began to walk.
it was all glory then,
the winged creatures leaping
like angels, the oceans claiming
their own. let us rest here a time
like two old brothers
who watched it happen and wondered
what it meant.
2
how great Thou art
listen, You are beyond
even Your own understanding.
that rib and rain and clay
in all its pride,
its unsteady dominion,
is not what You believed
You were,
but it is what You are;
in Your own image as some
lexicographer supposed.
the face, both he and she,
the odd ambition, the desire
to reach beyond the stars
is You. all You, all You
the loneliness, the perfect
imperfection.
3
as for myself
less snake than angel
less angel than man
how come i to this
serpent’s understanding?
watching creation from
a hood of leaves
i have foreseen the evening
of the world.
as sure as she,
the breast of Yourself
separated out and made to bear,
as sure as her returning,
i too am blessed with
the one gift you cherish;
to feel the living move in me
and to be unafraid.
4
in my own defense
what could i choose
but to slide along beside them,
they whose only sin
was being their father’s children?
as they stood with their backs
to the garden,
a new and terrible luster
burning their eyes,
only You could have called
their ineffable names,
only in their fever
could they have failed to hear.
5
the road led from delight
into delight. into the sharp
edge of seasons, into the sweet
puff of bread baking, the warm
vale of sheet and sweat after love,
the tinny newborn cry of calf
and cormorant and humankind.
and pain, of course,
always there was some bleeding,
but forbid me not
my meditation on the outer world
before the rest of it, before
the bruising of his heel, my head,
and so forth.
6
“the silence of God is God.”
—Carolyn Forché
tell me, tell us why
in the confusion of a mountain
of babies stacked like cordwood,
of limbs walking away from each other,
of tongues bitten through
by the language of assault,
tell me, tell us why
You neither raised Your hand
nor turned away, tell us why
You watched the excommunication of
that world and You said nothing.
7
still there is mercy, there is grace
how otherwise
could i have come to this
marble spinning in space
propelled by the great
thumb of the universe?
how otherwise
could the two roads
of this tongue
converge into a single
certitude?
how otherwise
could i, a sleek old
traveler,
curl one day safe and still
beside You
at Your feet, perhaps,
but, amen, Yours.
8
“............is God.”
so.
having no need to speak
You sent Your tongue
splintered into angels.
even i,
with my little piece of it
have said too much.
to ask You to explain
is to deny You.
before the word
You were.
You kiss my brother mouth.
the rest is silence.
Uncollected Poems
(1993)
hometown 1993
think of it; the landscape
potted as if by war, think of
the weeds, the boarded buildings,
the slivers of window abandoned
in the streets, and behind one
glass, my little brother, dying.
think of how he must have
bounded into our mothers arms,
held hard to our fathers swollen hand,
never looking back, glad to be gone
from the contempt, the terrible night
of buffalo.
ones like us
enter a blurry world,
fetish tight around our
smallest finger, mezuzah
gripped in our good child hand.
we feel for our luck
but everywhere is menace menace
until we settle ourselves
against the bark of trees, against
the hide of fierce protection
and there, in the shadow,
words call us. words call us
and we go.
for wayne karlin
5/28/93
The Terrible Stories
(1996)
for marilyn marlow
telling our stories
the fox came every evening to my door
asking for nothing. my fear
trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her
but she sat till morning, waiting.
at dawn we would, each of us,
rise from our haunches, look through the glass
then walk away.
did she gather her village around her
and sing of the hairless moon face,
the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?
child, i tell you now it was not
the animal blood i was hiding from,
it was the poet in her, the poet and
the terrible stories she could tell.
1. A Dream of Foxes
fox
. . . The foxes are hungry, who could blame them for what they do? . . .
— “Foxes in Winter”
Mary Oliver
who
can blame her for hunkering
into the doorwells at night,
the only blaze in the dark
the brush of her hopeful tail,
the only starlight
her little bared teeth?
>
and when she is not satisfied
who can blame her for refusing to leave,
for raising the one paw up and barking,
Master Of The Hunt, why am i
not feeding, not being fed?
the coming of fox
one evening i return
to a red fox
haunched by my door.
i am afraid
although she knows
no enemy comes here.
next night again
then next then next
she sits in her safe shadow
silent as my skin bleeds
into long bright flags
of fur.
dear fox
it is not my habit
to squat in the hungry desert
fingering stones, begging them
to heal, not me but the dry mornings
and bitter nights.
it is not your habit
to watch. none of this
is ours, sister fox.
tell yourself that anytime now
we will rise and walk away
from somebody else’s life.
any time.
leaving fox
so many fuckless days and nights.
only the solitary fox
watching my window light
barks her compassion.
i move away from her eyes,
from the pitying brush
of her tail
to a new place and check
for signs. so far
i am the only animal.
i will keep the door unlocked
until something human comes.
one year later
what if,
then,
entering my room,
brushing against the shadows,
lapping them into rust,
her soft paw extended,
she had called me out?
what if,
then,
i had reared up baying,
and followed her off
into vixen country?
what then of the moon,
the room, the bed, the poetry
of regret?
a dream of foxes
in the dream of foxes
there is a field
and a procession of women
clean as good children
no hollow in the world
surrounded by dogs
no fur clumped bloody
on the ground
only a lovely line
of honest women stepping
without fear or guilt or shame
safe through the generous fields
2. From the Cadaver
amazons
when the rookery of women
warriors all
each cupping one hand around
her remaining breast
daughters of dahomey
their name fierce on the planet
when they came to ask
who knows what you might have
to sacrifice poet amazon
there is no choice
then when they each
with one nipple lifted
beckoned to me
five generations removed
i rose
and ran to the telephone
to hear
cancer early detection no
mastectomy not yet
there was nothing to say
my sisters swooped in a circle dance
audre was with them and i
had already written this poem
lumpectomy eve
all night i dream of lips
that nursed and nursed
and the lonely nipple
lost in loss and the need
to feed that turns at last
on itself that will kill
its body for its hunger’s sake
all night i hear the whispering
the soft
love calls you to this knife
for love for love
all night it is the one breast
comforting the other
consulting the book of changes: radiation
each morning you will cup
your breast in your hand
then cover it and ride
into the federal city.
if there are no cherry blossoms
can there be a cherry tree?
you will arrive at the house
of lightning. even the children there
will glow in the arms of their kin.
where is the light in one leaf
falling?
you will wait to hear your name,
wish you were a child with kin,
wish some of the men you loved
had loved you.
what is the splendor of one breast
on one woman?
you will rise to the machine.
if someone should touch you now
his hand would flower.
after, you will stop to feed yourself.
you have always had to feed yourself.
will i begin to cry?
if you do, you will cry forever.
1994
i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when a thumb of ice
stamped itself hard near my heart
you have your own story
you know about the fear the tears
the scar of disbelief
you know that the saddest lies
are the ones we tell ourselves
you know how dangerous it is
to be born with breasts
you know how dangerous it is
to wear dark skin
i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when i woke into the winter
of a cold and mortal body
thin icicles hanging off
the one mad nipple weeping
have we not been good children
did we not inherit the earth
but you must know all about this
from your own shivering life
scar
we will learn
to live together.
i will call you
ribbon of hunger
and desire
empty pocket flap
edge of before and after.
and you
what will you call me?
woman i ride
who cannot throw me
and i will not fall off.
hag riding
why
is what i ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in me
still trying to get home
after all these years
but when i wake to the heat of the morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride
down the tram
hell is like this first stone
then rock so wonderful
you forget you have no faith
some pine some scrub brush
just enough to clench green
in the air
yes it is always evening
there are stars there is sky
you stand there silent
in the long approach
watching as caverns
tense into buildings
wondering who could live here
knowing whatever they have done
they must be beautiful
rust
we don’t like rust,
it reminds us that we are dying.
—Brett Singer
are you saying that iron understands
time is another name for God?
that the rain-licked pot is holy?
that the pan abandoned in the house
is holy? are you saying that they
&nbs
p; are sanctified now, our girlhood skillets
tarnishing in the kitchen?
are you saying we only want to remember
the heft of our mothers’ handles,
their ebony patience, their shine?
from the cadaver
for bill palmer
the arm you hold up
held a son he became
taller than his father
if he is watching there
in my dim lit past
let him see
what a man comes to
doctor or patient
criminal or king
pieces of baggage
cold in a stranger’s hand
3. A Term in Memphis
shadows
in the latter days
you will come to a place
called memphis
there you will wait for a while
by the river mississippi