a lot, thinks I have a fine
sense
of humor
& has friends.
number 14, someone who can be
original in dress:
stylish
warlock—in silver, lapis
& black—to my witch.
***
Turning Madness into Flowers #1
If my sorrow were deeper
I’d be, along with you, under
the ocean’s floor;
but today I learn that the oil
that pools beneath the ocean floor
is essence
residue
remains
of all our
relations
all
our ancestors who have died and turned to oil
without our witness
eons ago.
We’ve always belonged to them.
Speaking for you, hanging, weeping, over the water’s edge
as well as for myself.
It is our grief
heavy, relentless,
trudging
us, however resistant,
to the decaying and rotten
bottom of things:
our grief bringing
us home.
***
What It Feels Like
As if I’ve swallowed
A watermelon
And
Sidestepping
My digestive tract
It has lodged
In my heart.
There it lies
Green
& whole
with a luscious
red
heart of its own
daring me
to cut.
***
Before I Leave the Stage
Before I leave the stage
I will sing the only song
I was meant truly to sing.
It is the song
of I AM.
Yes: I am Me
&
You.
WE ARE.
I love Us with every drop
of our blood
every atom of our cells
our waving particles
—undaunted flags of our Being—
neither here nor there.
***
Remember?
Remember
When we ended
It all
—for a weekend—
& how
We knew?
You took
The tea bowl
That I
Broke
In
Carelessness
To glue together
Again
At your
House.
***
Working Class Hero
My brothers knew
The things you know.
I did not scorn
learning them;
It’s just my mind
Was busy being trained
For “Other Things”:
Poetry, Philosophy, Literature.
Survival, for a girl.
But now,
What a relief
To see you understand
The ways
Of horses
Their shyness
& hatred
Of
Loneliness:
That you will not
Hesitate
To rescue
An old horse,
Dying on
His feet
&
That you will
Cheerfully
Wash him,
Aged
&
Incontinent
Head
To
Toe. Missing
With your bucket
&
Rag
Not
One
Hidden
Crevice
As he
Trembles
& weeps.
What peace
To see
Raising chickens
Does not
Mystify you
and
Hot water heaters
& their ways
Are well known;
That electricity
& how it
Works
Is something
Within
Your grasp.
That you can
Get a car
To run
By poking
It in
A few mysterious
Places
Under
The hood.
That you can
Fix a
Broken
Anything: battery, truck, stove,
Door, fridge, lamp, chicken coop hinge
While teaching me
The ins and outs
Of Opera
Or
While singing
Lusty
Italian
Tenor
That
Shakes
The walls.
That you can
Sit, comfy,
Unperturbed
By traffic
In the womb-like
Back seat
Of my
Aging
Chariot
While I drive
& you
Ride
The silver
Black
& Golden
Horses
Of
Your
Trumpet.
***
The Ways of Water
With your unknown
to me
Odd magic
You came
To me:
Your truck
Backfiring
As if sending
Out
Rockets
To the
Stars
You came
In
So gracefully
Rockets
Silenced
Behind you &
Set
To work
As if nothing
Brought you
Greater
Joy.
I did not see Life was
About to change, as it does,
When odd magic appears:
There was
No music
Yet.
Chatting
About relationships, our freedom
From same,
Which we
So defended;
About water, faucet
Drips;
The gifts
Of growing older;
You set to work
& I, standing above you
As you lay on
Your back
Studied
Your feet:
Well cared for
In ocean blue
Sandals
Made of tough
Plastic.
Buddies,
We said, we agreed
That’s what we
Needed.
How about going out
Together as buddies
For a night of music
& dance? My first
Indication
That song
Had a place
In
Your world.
Two years later
The leak
In my kitchen
Sink
Remains
Fixed
As well as
The leak
I never mentioned
In my spirit.
Early and late
We savor
The music
That comes
From
Your horn
The Golden Phoenix
That travels
With us
Everywhere
Your sound
Your love of Miles & Bird
& Wynton
Making
Friends of
strangers
Around
The globe.
In Poor
Countries
Where
The grass
Has died
& the ponies
& oxen
Also
& the people
Have nothing
To bathe in
Or to drink &
Yet are soothed
By your cool
& liquid
Music, which
You pour over them
So freely,
I want to tell them:
Yes, he is also
A water man.
Yes, he also knows
The ways
Of water.
But they know this.
***
You Want to Grow Old Like the Carters
For Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter of Plains, Georgia
Let other leaders
Retire
To play golf
& write
Memoirs
About bombing
Villages
They’ve never seen.
Growing old
Presents a peril
They may not
Expect.
It is to lose
One’s soul
In trivia
& irrelevance
The nerve
Endings
Blunted
By the constant
Pressure
Of moral
Indifference.
Growing old
A curse:
Not even
Generally speaking
Able
To relate
To whoever
Shares
Your house. Not the mansion
You inhabit
On the
Lovely stolen hill
Above the sea
Or the interior one:
The darkened
Desolate
Shack.
You want to grow old
Like
The Carters;
Curing blindness
&
Building houses
For
The Poor;
Making friends of those
Who believe
They must fight.
You want to grow old
Like
The Carters
Holding hands
With someone
You love
&
Riding bicycles
Leisurely
Where the ground
Is well known
& perfectly
Flat.
You want to find
And keep to the path
Laid down
Inside you
Such a long time
Ago.
You want to grow old
Like
The Carters:
Serene. Eyes
Twinkling
To be accused
Of
Not getting
It right.
Upfront, upright.
Speaking what to you is true.
A person rich in Mothers.
Beloved.
And:
Honoring what is black
In you.
***
The answer is: Live happily!
To all my relations who have known this suffering.
And for Miles Davis, just because.
Happy New Year.
When you thought me poor,
my poverty was shaming.
When blackness was unwelcome
we found it best
that I stay home.
When by the miracle
of fierce dreaming and hard work
Life fulfilled our every want
you found me crassly
well off;
not trimly,
inconspicuously wealthy
like your rich friends.
Still black too,
Now
I owned too much and too many
of everything.
Woe is me: I became a
success! Blackness, who
knows how?
Became suddenly
in!
What to do?
Now that Fate appears
(for the moment anyhow)
to have dismissed
abject failure
in any case?
Now that moonlight and night
have blessed me.
Now that the sun
unaffected by criticism
of any sort,
implacably beams
the kiss-filled magic that creates
the dark and radiant wonder
of my face.
***
Word reaches us
For Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords
Word reaches us
that you are sleeping, sleeping.
Dismayed
we have turned to the sea.
We encounter among others
walking there
a sense of what we have lost:
the broad expanse of humanity’s
sensitivity to the oneness of itself.
Gabrielle,
while you sleep, resting your nimble
brain, we think of walking with you
in the valley
of the shadow of death; holding
you up.
We hope you can feel our grief;
our sorrow vast
like the ocean that draws us.
We know in this moment you teach us many
things:
how all across the world
there is no one who deserves this fate.
We know we must bleach and sterilize our
tongues,
brighten with understanding
all our dark thoughts.
Sister, whom I never met
except in this pain that has so
wounded you
thank you for reminding us
through your suffering
and your suspenseful sleep
that we must change.
***
When You See Water
When you see water in a stream
you say: oh, this is stream
water;
When you see water in the river
you say: oh, this is water
of the river;
When you see ocean
Water
you say: This is the ocean’s
water!
But actually water is always
only itself
and does not belong
to any of these containers
though it creates them.
And so it is with you.
***
This is a story of how love works
This is the house for orphaned young girls; the house that love built.
These are two of the beautiful girls who will live there.
Here is a flower for them!
It all started without a beginning! How cool.
Alice was eating in a vegan restaurant
because she is always trying to do things
that sometimes she keeps failing at:
still, she was there, eating her greens and peas
and sweet potatoes. It was all really good!
There was a young woman seated near her
with a slender, elegant East African
body and super long locks
and this woman gave her a card that read:
Beautiful Loks!
There was a picture of a child gently touching
his mother’s locks. Alice liked this because one
of her favorite things is tenderness!
Years went by. She and the young Kenyan
became friends. Over hair, actually.
And learning new things, like: Irish Moss.
Didn’t Bob Marley swear by it? But what was
> it? Exactly?
The Kenyan knew! Ground some up for
Alice. Watched her drink it, along with other
slippery stuff.
Her name is Mo’raa M.B., which Alice liked
the sound of. Her mother had died and her
aunt Kwamboka Okari raised her. Raised her
really well, too; Alice was happy to see. She
worked hard, always learning new things. She
said Please, May I help you, Auntie, and best
of all: Thank you.
When Alice looked around to find an
orphanage to adopt, Mo’raa M.B. invited her
aunt Kwamboka to Alice’s for dinner (she was
visiting the country). Kwamboka brought
Alice a beautiful sculpture of a woman
carrying a child on her back. They became
friends.
Kwamboka with help from wonderful folks in
the United States was running an orphanage
for children in Kenya who’d lost their parents
to AIDS.
Over the next two or three years the school
at the orphanage needed many things that
Alice was able to help with. A floor, books,
uniforms, things like that. But then, Alice
was given a magical gift by Yoko Ono; a gift
so magical it would only work if it were
immediately handed to someone else! Alice
loved this; and of course she always loved
Yoko Ono.
What did this mean?
The dormitory for girls was going up brick by brick,
with love and contributions of all
sizes flowing or creeping in! More and more
children, boys and girls, were finding their
way to the orphanage.
With Yoko Ono’s offering, and in spiritual
cahoots with John Lennon, the girls’
dormitory was finished!
This is the house that love built. Let’s look at it again!
Red! What joy! Blue! Yes!
Alice feels happy every time she looks at these
pictures sent by Kwamboka Okari (founder of
the Margaret Okari Foundation’s school and
orphanage), of the girls Yvonne and Brenda,
and of the cheerful residence the girls will occupy.
It is beautiful, just as housing for all our girls
and boys should be. Wherever they are on the
globe. (No child anywhere should live in ugly
housing! Ugly housing damages the spirit.
Not to mention the beauty-loving soul!)
When something wonderful like this happens,
when friends connect regardless of being dead
(some of them) or far away (others of them),
we know we are on the right path. Thorns