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From SeeingBlack.com Literature
"Something about this boy/has held my tongue/so that when my hands travel over Mary/my mind cries only/Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" -- from Good News About The Earth FOR LUCILLE CLIFTON & PROGENY To my poet friends, and to those who inspire our words: We have lost our mother, but then, not prior to gaining life strands she handed over to us. And as we breathe, copiously breed our words, recall divine capacity to raise up from stones children, and with this, know to drench ourselves in what flows through ancestral wombs, seeing to the signing of our names. 2/16/10 *** Lucille Clifton was an American poet, writer, and educator from New York. Common topics in her poetry include the celebration of her African American heritage, and feminist themes, with particular emphasis on the female body. She was the first person in her family to finish high school and attend college. She started Howard University on scholarship as a drama major but lost the scholarship two years later. Thus began her writing career. "Good Times", her first book of poems, was published in 1969. She has since been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and has been honored as Maryland's Poet Laureate. Here are some of her poems: blessing the boats (at St. Mary's) may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that sorrow song for the eyes of the children, the last to melt, the last to vaporize, for the lingering eyes of the children, staring, the eyes of the children of buchenwald, of viet nam and johannesburg, for the eyes of the children of nagasaki, for the eyes of the children of middle passage, for cherokee eyes, ethiopian eyes, russian eyes, american eyes, for all that remains of the children, their eyes, staring at us, amazed to see the extraordinary evil in ordinary men. jasper texas 1998 for j. byrd i am a man's head hunched in the road. i was chosen to speak by the members of my body. the arm as it pulled away pointed toward me, the hand opened once and was gone. why and why and why should i call a white man brother? who is the human in this place, the thing that is dragged or the dragger? what does my daughter say? the sun is a blister overhead. if i were alive i could not bear it. the townsfolk sing we shall overcome while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth into the dirt that covers us all. i am done with this dust. i am done. the message of crazy horse i would sit in the center of the world, the Black Hills hooped around me and dream of my dancing horse. my wife was Black Shawl who gave me the daughter i called They Are Afraid Of Her. i was afraid of nothing except Black Buffalo Woman. my love for her i wore instead of feathers. i did not dance i dreamed. i am dreaming now across the worlds. my medicine is strong. my medicine is strong in the Black basket of these fingers. i come again through this Black Buffalo woman. hear me; the hoop of the world is breaking. fire burns in the four directions. the dreamers are running away from the hills. i have seen it. i am crazy horse. wishes for sons i wish them cramps. i wish them a strange town and the last tampon. i wish them no 7-11. i wish them one week early and wearing a white skirt. i wish them one week late. later i wish them hot flashes and clots like you wouldn't believe. let the flashes come when they meet someone special. let the clots come when they want to. let them think they have accepted arrogance in the universe, then bring them to gynecologists not unlike themselves. my dream about being white hey music and me only white, hair a flutter of fall leaves circling my perfect line of a nose, no lips, no behind, hey white me and i�m wearing white history but there�s no future in those clothes so i take them off and wake up dancing. mulberry fields they thought the field was wasting and so they gathered the marker rocks and stones and piled them into a barn they say that the rocks were shaped some of them scratched with triangles and other forms they must have been trying to invent some new language they say the rocks went to build that wall there guarding the manor and some few were used for the state house crops refused to grow i say the stones marked an old tongue and it was called eternity and pointed toward the river i say that after that collection no pillow in the big house dreamed i say that somewhere under here moulders one called alice whose great grandson is old now too and refuses to talk about slavery i say that at the masters table only one plate is set for supper i say no seed can flourish on this ground once planted then forsaken wild berries warm a field of bones bloom how you must i say Read and search literature reviews, excerpts and news on SeeingBlack.com's Literature channel and archive. 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