Sonia Sanchez

Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman

Picture a woman

riding thunder on

the legs of slavery    ...    

2

Picture her kissing

our spines saying no to

the eyes of slavery    ...    

3

Picture her rotating

the earth into a shape

of lives becoming    ...    

4

Picture her leaning

into the eyes of our

birth clouds    ...    

5

Picture this woman

saying no to the constant

yes of slavery    ...    

6

Picture a woman

jumping rivers her

legs inhaling moons    ...    

7

Picture her ripe

with seasons of

legs    ...   running    ...    

8

Picture her tasting

the secret corners

of woods    ...   

9

Picture her saying:

You have within you the strength,

the patience, and the passion

to reach for the stars,

to change the world    ...    

10

Imagine her words:

Every great dream begins

with a dreamer    ...    

11

Imagine her saying:

I freed a thousand slaves,

could have freed

a thousand more if they

only knew they were slaves    ...    

12

Imagine her humming:

How many days we got

fore we taste freedom    ...    

13

Imagine a woman

asking: How many workers

for this freedom quilt    ...    

14

Picture her saying:

A live runaway could do

great harm by going back

but a dead runaway

could tell no secrets    ...    

15

Picture the daylight

bringing her to woods

full of birth moons    ...    

16

Picture John Brown

shaking her hands three times saying:

General Tubman. General Tubman. General Tubman.

17

Picture her words:

There’s two things I got a

right to: death or liberty    ...    

18

Picture her saying no

to a play called Uncle Tom’s Cabin:

I am the real thing    ...    

19

Picture a Black woman:

could not read or write

trailing freedom refrains    ...    

20

Picture her face

turning southward walking

down a Southern road    ...    

21

Picture this woman

freedom bound    ...    tasting a

people’s preserved breath    ...    

22

Picture this woman

of royalty    ...    wearing a crown

of morning air    ...    

23

Picture her walking,

running, reviving

a country’s breath    ...    

24

Picture black voices

leaving behind

lost tongues   ...

Audre Lorde

But What Can You Teach My Daughter

What do you mean

no no no no

you don’t have the right

to know

how often

have we built each other

as shelters

against the cold

and even my daughter knows

what you know

can hurt you

she says her nos

and it hurts

she says

when she talks of liberation

she means freedom

from that pain

she knows

what you know

can hurt

but what you do 

not know

can kill.

Audre Lorde

Who Said It Was Simple

There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.

Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march
discussing the problematic girls
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes
a waiting brother to serve them first
and the ladies neither notice nor reject
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.
But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as ***

and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.

Lucille Clifton

homage to my hips

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don't fit into little

petty places. these hips

are free hips.

they don't like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,   

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton

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

Alok V. Menon

the deepest breath

on the other side of now
when this is all over
i want to attend a funeral every day.

i will sit at the back,
silently crying.

when they ask how I knew her?
i will smile through the tears.
"i didn't."

but.
i loved her.
because once upon a time
she breathed. which means that the particles that touched
the deepest parts of her, she exhaled them
& somehow they found their way to me.

i am the product of everything that is & was
all that has lived &
all that has died on this earth.

i am sorry that it took a virus help me remember
that simple fact --
that we breathe the same air.

Derek Walcott

Love After Love

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

Billy Collins

LITANY

You are the bread and the knife,
          The crystal goblet and the wine...
                -Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Eileen Myles

THE SADNESS OF LEAVING 

Everything’s
   so far away—
my jacket’s
   over there. I’m terrified
      to go & you
won’t miss me
      I’m terrified by the
bright blues of
         the subway
      other days I’m
        so happy &
prepared to believe
      that everyone walking
down the street is
         someone I know.
The oldness of Macy’s
      impresses me. The
      wooden escalators
              as you get
higher up to the furniture,
     credit, lampshades—
      You shopped here
        as a kid. Oh,
    you deserve me! In
      a movie called
        Close Up—once in
a while the wiggly
bars, notice
    the wiggly blue
      bars of
        subway entrances,
the grainy beauty,
    the smudge. I won’t
kill myself today. It’s
    too beautiful. My heart
      breaking down 23rd
  St. To share this
     with you, the
     sweetness of the
           frame. My body
     in perfect shape
       for nothing but
         death. I want
    to show you this.
          On St. Mark’s Place
             a madman screams:
    my footsteps, the
        drumbeats of Armageddon.
          Oh yes bring me
          closer to you Lord.
    I want to die
          Close Up. A handful
    of bouncing yellow
          tulips for David.     I
        admit I love tulips
             because they
          die so beautifully.
                                        I
        see salvation in
  their hanging heads.
A beautiful exit. How do
        they get to
              feel so free? I am
        trapped by love—
               over french fries
          my eyes wander to
               The Hue Bar. A blue
          sign. Across the
      life. On my way to
         making a point,
              to making
               logic, to not
      falling in love to-
                night and
          let my pain remain
          unwrapped—to push
the machine—Paul’s
      staying in touch, but
  oh remember Jessica
      Lange, she looked so
               beautiful all
           doped up, on her
      way to meet King
        Kong. I sit
     on my little red
         couch in February
     how do they get
          to feel so free
 1,000,000 women
          not me moving through
the street tonight
   of this filmy
     city & I
       crown myself
     again & again
         and there
      can’t be
         two kings.