it is perhaps
a final chance
not the end of the world
of a world
there is a star
more distant
than eden
something there
is even now
preparing
end of message
Voices
(2008)
for my little bird
and
my beamish boy
“all goodbye ain’t gone”
hearing
“marley was dead to begin with”
from A Christmas Carol
then in trenchtown and in babylon
the sound of marleys ghost
rose and began to fill the air
like in the christmas tale
his spirit shuddered and was alive
again his dreadful locks
thick in the voices of his children
ziggy and i and i marley again
standing and swaying
everything gonna be alright
little darling
no woman no cry
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
uncle ben
mother guineas favorite son
knew rice and that was almost
all he knew
not where he was
not why
not who were the pale sons
of a pale moon
who had brought him here
rice rice rice
and so he worked the river
worked as if born to it
thinking only now and then
of himself of the sun
of afrika
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
horse prayer
why was i born to balance
this two-leg
on my back to carry
across my snout
his stocking of oat and apple
why i pray to You
Father Of What Runs And Swims
in the name of the fenceless
field when he declares himself
master
does he not understand my
neigh
raccoon prayer
oh Master Of All Who Take And Wash
And Eat lift me away at the end into evening
forever into sanctified crumples of paper
and peelings curled over my hand
i have scavenged as i must
among the hairless
now welcome this bandit into the kingdom
just as you made him
barefoot and faithful and clean
dog’s god
has lifted dog
on four magnificent legs
has blessed him with fur
against the cold
and blessed him with
two-legs to feed him
and clean his waste
gods dog
spins and tumbles
in the passion
of his praise
albino
for kathy
we sat
in the stalled
car
watching him
watch us
his great pink
antlers
branched
his pink eyes
fixed
on the joy
of the black woman
and the white one
laughing together
and he smiled
at the sometime
wonderfulness
of other
mataoka
(actual name of pocahontas)
in the dream was white men
walking up from the river
in the dream was our land
stolen away and our horses
and our names
in the dream was my father
fighting to save us in the dream
the pipe was broken
and i was leaning my body
across the whimpering
white man
if our father loves revenge
more than he loves his children
spoke the dream
we need to know it now
witko
aka crazy horse
the man
who wore a blue stone
behind his ear
did not dance
dreamed
clear fields
and redmen everywhere
woke and braided
his curling brown hair
as his enchanted horse
who woke with him
prepared
whispering
Hoka Hay brother
it is a good day
to die
what haunts him
that moment after the bartender
refused to serve the dark marine
and the three white skinned others
just sat there that moment
before they rose and followed
their nappy brother
out into the USA they were
willing to die to defend
then
my grandfather’s lullaby
pretty little nappy baby
rockin in that chair
theys a world outside
the window
and somebody in it hates you
let me hold you baby
and love you all i can
better to hear it from papa
than learn it all alone
“you have been my tried and trusted friend”
said the coal miners son
to the chippers daughter
then turned his head and died
and she and their children rose
and walked behind the coffin
to the freeway
after a while
she started looking at
other womens husbands other
womens sons but she had been
tried and trusted once and
though once is never enough
she knew two may be too
many
lu
1942
what i know is
this is called gravel
you must not eat it
you must not throw it
at your brother
what i know is
over there is our house
our sidewalk too
there is no grass grass
is for the white folks section
what i know is
something is coming mama
calls it war calls it change
mama loves me daddy
loves me too much
what i know is
this is in the middle
i am in the middle
<
br /> come in come in my mama calls
you can’t stay there forever
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
being heard
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
my father hasn’t come back
to apologize i have stood
and waited almost sixty years
so different from the nights
i wedged myself between
the mattress and the wall
i do not hate him
i assure myself
only his probing fingers
i have to teach you
he one time whispered
more to himself than me
i am seventy-two-years-old
dead man and in another city
standing with my daughters granddaughters
trying to understand you
trying to help them understand
the sticks and stones of love
dad
consider the raw potato
wrapped in his dress sock
consider his pocket
heavy with loose change
consider his printed list
of whitemens names
for beating her
and leaving no bruises
for bus fare
for going bail
for vouching for him
he would say
consider
he would say
the gods might
understand
a man like me
faith
my father was so sure
that afternoon
he put on his Sunday suit
and waited at the front porch
one hand in his pocket
the other gripping his hat
to greet the end of the world
waited there patient as the eclipse
ordained the darkening
of everything
the house the neighborhood we knew
the world his hopeful eyes the only
glowing things on purdy street
afterblues
“i hate to see the evening sun go down”
my mothers son
died in his sleep
and so did mine
both of them found
though years apart
hands folded in
unexpected prayer
cold on a bed
of trouble my brother
my son
my mama was right
theys blues
in the night
the dead do dream
scattered they dream of gathering
each perfect ash to each
so that where there was blindness
there is sight
and all the awkward bits
discarded
if they have been folded
into boxes
they dream themselves spilling
out and away
their nails grown long and
menacing
some of them dream they are asleep
on ordinary pillows
they rise to look around
their ordinary rooms
to walk among the lives
of their heedless kin
“in 1844 explorers John Fremont and Kit Carson discovered Lake Tahoe”
—Lodge guidebook
in 1841 Washoe children
swam like otters in the lake
their mothers rinsed red beans
in 1842 Washoe warriors began to dream
dried bones and hollow reeds
they woke clutching their shields
in 1843 Washoe elders began to speak
of grass hunched in fear and
thunder sticks over the mountain
in 1844 Fremont and Carson
mirror
one day
we will look into the mirror
and the great nation standing there
will shake its head and frown
they way babies do who
are just born
and cant remember
why they asked for just
these people just this chance
and when we close our eyes
against regret
we will be left alone
in the wrong image not understanding
what we are or what we
had hoped to be
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
in amira’s room
you are not nearly light enough
i whisper to myself
staring up at the stars
on amiras ceiling
you are my lightest grandchild
she would smile
crazy lady who loved me more
of course
shining among my cousins
in my maryjanes
sure that i could one day
lift from the darkness
from the family holding me
to what the world would call
unbearable
i lie here now
under my godchilds ceiling
grandma gone cousins all gone
the dark world still
smug still visible
among the stars
for maude
what i am forgetting doubles everyday
what i am remembering
is you is us aging
though you called me girl
i can feel us white haired
nappy and not
listening to marvin
both of us wondering
whats going on all of us
wondering oh darlin girl
what what what
highway 89 toward tahoe
a congregation
of red rocks
sits at attention
watching the water
the trees among them
rustle hosanna
hosanna
something stalls the rental car
something moves us
something in the river
Christ
rowing for our lives
ten oxherding pictures
a meditation on ten oxherding pictures
here are the hands
they are still
if i ask them to rise
they will rise
if i ask them to turn
they will turn in an arc
of perfect understanding
they have allowed me only such
privilege as owed to flesh
or bone no more they know
they belong to the ox
1st picture
searching for the ox
they have waited my lifetime for this
>
something has entered the hands
they stir
the fingers come together
caressing each others tips
in a need beyond desire
until the silence has released
something like a name
they move away i follow
it is the summons from the ox
2nd picture
seeing the traces
as tracks
in the buffalo snow
leading to only
a mirror
and what do they make of that
the hands
or baltimore
voices whispering
in a room where no one sits
except myself
and what do the hands make of that
The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 Page 21