Written by
Alice Walker |
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.
Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.
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Written by
Alice Walker |
Expect nothing.
Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing.
Live frugally
On surprise.
|
Written by
Alice Walker |
Expect nothing.
Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing.
Live frugally
On surprise.
|
Written by
Alice Walker |
The old men used to sing
And lifted a brother
Carefully
Out the door
I used to think they
Were born
Knowing how to
Gently swing
A casket
They shuffled softly
Eyes dry
More awkward
With the flowers
Than with the widow
After they'd put the
Body in
And stood around waiting
In their
Brown suits.
|
Written by
Alice Walker |
I have a friend
who is turning gray,
not just her hair,
and I do not know
why this is so.
Is it a lack of vitamin E
pantothenic acid, or B-12?
Or is it from being frantic
and alone?
'How long does it take you to love someone?'
I ask her.
'A hot second,' she replies.
'And how long do you love them?'
'Oh, anywhere up to several months.
'
'And how long does it take you
to get over loving them?'
'Three weeks,' she said, 'tops.
'
Did I mention I am also
turning gray?
It is because I *adore* this woman
who thinks of love
in this way.
|
Written by
Alice Walker |
(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)
We must say it all, and as clearly
Trying to bury us.
As we can.
For, even before we are dead,
Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country?
Or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?
But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,
As clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated
Enough to cry and scream?
Well, then, they will fill our eyes,
Our ears, our noses and our mouths
With the mud
Of oblivion.
They will chew up
Our fingers in the night.
They will pick
Their teeth with our pens.
They will sabotage
Both our children
And our art.
Because when we show what we see,
They will discern the inevitable:
We do not worship them.
We do not worship them.
We do not worship what they have made.
We do not trust them.
We do not believe what they say.
We do not love their efficiency.
Or their power plants.
We do not love their factories.
Or their smog.
We do not love their television programs.
Or their radioactive leaks.
We find their papers boring.
We do not worship their cars.
We do not worship their blondes.
We do not worship their penises.
We do not think much
Of their Renaissance
We are indifferent to England.
We have grave doubts about their brains.
In short, we who write, paint, sculpt, dance
Or sing
Share the intelligence and thus the fate
Of all our people
In this land.
We are not different from them,
Neither above nor below,
Outside nor inside.
We are the same.
And we do not worship them.
We do not worship them.
We do not worship their movies.
We do not worship their songs.
We do not think their newscasts
Cast the news.
We do not admire their president.
We know why the White House is white.
We do not find their children irresistible;
We do not agree they should inherit the earth.
But lately you have begun to help them
Bury us.
You who said: King was just a womanizer;
Malcom, just a thug; Sojourner, folksy; Hansberry,
A traitor (or whore, depending); Fannie Lou Hamer,
merely spunky; Zora Hurston, Nella Larsen, Toomer:
reactionary, brainwashed, spoiled by whitefolks, minor;
Agnes Smedley, a spy.
I look into your eyes;
You are throwing in the dirt.
You, standing in the grave
With me.
Stop it!
Each one must pull one.
Look, I, temporarily on the rim
Of the grave,
Have grasped my mother's hand
My father's leg.
There is the hand of Robeson
Langston's thigh
Zora's arm and hair
Your grandfather's lifted chin
And lynched woman's elbow
What you've tried to forget
Of your grandmother's frown.
Each one, pull one back into the sun
We who have stood over
So many graves
Know that no matter what they do
All of us must live
Or none.
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Written by
Alice Walker |
I said to Poetry: "I'm finished
with you.
"
Having to almost die
before some wierd light
comes creeping through
is no fun.
"No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
Im out for good times--
at the very least,
some painless convention.
"
Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn't sad or anything,
only restless.
Poetry said: "You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?"
I said: "I didn't hear that.
Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.
m.
I'm not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you.
"
Poetry said: "But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how suprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with
Think of that!"
"I'll join the church!" I said,
huffily, turning my face to the wall.
"I'll learn how to pray again!"
"Let me ask you," said Poetry.
"When you pray, what do you think
you'll see?"
Poetry had me.
"There's no paper
in this room," I said.
"And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise.
"
"Bullshit," said Poetry.
"Bullshit," said I.
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Written by
Alice Walker |
(FOR MARTYRS)
They who feel death close as a breath
Speak loudly in unlighted rooms
Lounge upright in articulate gesture
Before the herd of jealous Gods
Fate finds them receiving
At home.
Grim the warrior forest who present
Casual silence with casual battle cries
Or stand unflinchingly lodged
In common sand
Crucified.
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Written by
Alice Walker |
Who has not been
invaded
by the Wasichu?
Not I, said the people.
Not I, said the trees.
Not I, said the waters.
Not I, said the rocks.
Not I, said the air.
Moon!
We hoped
you were safe.
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Written by
Alice Walker |
When Golda Meir
Was in Africa
She shook out her hair
And combed it
Everywhere she went.
According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.
In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.
C.
,
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
She never combed at all.
There was no point.
In those
Places people said, "She looks like
Any other aging grandmother.
She looks
Like a troll.
Let's sell her cookery
And guns.
"
"Kreplach your cookery," said Golda.
Only in Africa could she finally
Settle down and comb her hair.
The children crept up and stroked it,
And she felt beautiful.
Such wonderful people, Africans
Childish, arrogant, self-indulgent, pompous,
Cowardly and treacherous-a great disappointment
To Israel, of course, and really rather
Ridiculous in international affairs
But, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm
And good taste.
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