“won’t you celebrate with me/ what I have shaped into/ a kind of life? i had no model./
born in Babylon/ both nonwhite and woman/ what did I see to be except myself?/
I made it up/ here on this bridge between/ starshine and clay, /my one hand holding tight/
my other hand; come celebrate/ with me that everyday/ something has tried to kill me/
and has failed.” (1)
Poet Lucille Clifton (1936-2010, Maryland’s poet laureate 1974-85, Pulitzer prize nominee) shines her light on endurance, courage, and steadfastness though hardship, sorrow, even atrocity revealed with vivid truth. She engages us in a complex range of emotions through striking imagery. Tender and gritty, she does so with intelligence, piercing insight, streamlined artistry, and compassion as both a witness to and recipient of the darker side of our humanity. The beauty, gratitude, and integrity she uncovers comes with the visceral ache and light of what it is to be human and vulnerable, longing for justice, love, and an opportunity to be whole. Even when her writing slaps us in the face, it is cold water reviving our waning consciousness.
“whose side are you on?/ the side of the bus stop woman/ trying to drag her bag/ up the front steps before the doors/ clang shut i am on her side/ i give her exact change/ and him the old man hanging by/ one trap his work hand folded shut/ as the bus doors i am on his side/ when he needs to leave/ i ring the bell i am on their side/ riding the late bus into the same/ someplace i am on the dark side always/ the side of my daughters/ the side of my tired sons.” (2)
She says more than once in her poems “we are who we are” ….. “not wonder woman and not superman.”(3) Not infallible or superpowered, born into assumptions, histories and world views we adopt without question, molded by life experience, steered by unconscious fears. And yet there is that spark within that senses when something isn’t right, that calls us to look, listen, question and follow our longing for a world of wholeness, of balance and respect for life. We stand on the bridge between starshine and clay.
“blake/ …saw them glittering in the trees,/ their quills erect among the leaves,/ angels everywhere. we need new words/ for what this is, this hunger entering our/ loneliness like birds, stunning our eyes into rays/ of hope. we need the flutter that can save/ us, something that will swirl across the face/ of what we have become and bring us grace./ back north, I sit again in my own home/ dreaming of blake, searching the branches/ for just one poem.”(4)
Poems of Lucille Clifton: (1) “won’t you celebrate with me” (2) “whose side are you on?” (3)”final note to clark” (4) “blake”
