Poems By Others

I wasn’t, by any means, a natural.
Was not one of those wow-hounds
born jaw-dropped. I was tough in the husk.
Went years untouched by rain. Took shelter
seriously, even and often especially
in good weather, my tears like teenagers
hiding under the hoods of my eyes,
so committed they were to never falling
for the joke of astonishment.

When I was told there were seven
wonders of the world, I trusted the math,
believed I had seen none of them.
Of course beauty hunted me.
It hunts everyone. But I outran it, hid
in worry, regret, the promise of an afterlife
or a week’s end.

Then one day, in a red velvet theater
in New Orleans, I watched Maya Angelou
walk on stage. Seventeen slow steps to the mic.
She took a breath before speaking,
and I could hear god being born in that breath.
My every pore reached out like a hand
pointing to the first unsinkable lotus
in the bayou of the universe.
I’d never felt anything like it.
Searched the encyclopedia
for the feeling’s name when I got home:

                        “Goosebumps.”

Afterwards, I thought—I can do this.
Started training morning to night,
tore the caution tape off my life
and let everything touch it.

Allen Iverson on the television
in his first season with the Sixers,
crossover sharp as a V of sparrows
Flying through the paint like Michelangelo’s brush:
272 goosebumps.

My baby sister, sober for the first time
in thirteen years, calling to tell me
she just noticed our mother’s eyes are green:
505 goosebumps.

One day, my friend scored tickets
to a Prince concert. Tiny venue.
I was right behind the sound booth.
Prince’s entire band that evening—women.
At the end of the show the person
turned around and whispered, He didn’t play
one song on his setlist the whole night.

I live on stages. I know what it is
to scratch a plan, but not the whole trip
and still arrive to your destination
two hundred years before your time:
421 (artist formerly known as) goosebumps.

But that’s just the fancy stuff.
Some of them came from simple facts—
It rains diamonds on Jupiter.
Blood donors in Sweden receive a thank you
message when their blood is used.

One night in Michigan, my friend,
still undiagnosed, could not uncurl
her fingers to strum her guitar,
so she sang the chords instead.
It was the first time in my life I’d seen pain
become an instrument:
10 dozen goosebumps
for each and every note plucked up from
the string section of her refusal to silence
her dream.

After that, nothing in the world was gray.
Even the movie of my past was released
in color. The oldest man in my hometown
could not get to the door to listen
to our carols so we went inside and sang
at his bedside instead. Twenty-four boots
on the front step catching snowflakes
with their tongues: 776 goosebumps.

At one point everything started doing it:
A sincere apology, an enemy’s love poem.
The moon rising over the continental divide.
My love and I thought it was a car
driving off a cliff, and suddenly
nothing in the world was dying.
You ever felt that? A split second
when nothing in the world is dying?
888 goosebumps, and the next day
I sharpened a tiny ax
so I could split the seconds myself.
Too much lives in a moment
to not feed it to the fire in the heart, slow.

A Missoula treehouse filled with candlelight.
The octopus documentary.
The biggest dog in the shelter
hiding behind a teacup chihuahua,
and the woman who came to adopt a cat
taking all three of them home.

Me, at home, two months into chemotherapy
watching all of my eyelashes fall onto my cheekbones
and realizing that was 400 wishes
I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

There is no escaping
the magic now. Beauty caught me
and never let me go.
And the thing about the world record
is—if someone breaks it after me,
and they will break it after me,
I will love that so much
that without even trying,
I’ll break it again.

I took a long time getting here,
much of it wasted on wrong turns,
back roads riddled by ruts.
I had adventures
I never would have known
if I proceeded as 
the crow flies.
Super highways are so sure
of where they are going:
they arrive too soon.

A straight line isn’t always 
the shortest distance
between two people.
Sometimes I act as though
I’m heading somewhere else
while, imperceptibly,
I narrow the gap between you and me.
I’m not sure I’ll ever
know the right way, but I don’t mind
getting lost now and then.
Maps don’t know everything

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to 
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just 
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I 
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemademamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

They’re both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they’d never met before, they’re sure
that there’d been nothing between them.
But what’s the word from the streets, staircases, hallways—
perhaps they’ve passed by each other a million times?

I want to ask them
if they don’t remember—
a moment face to face
in some revolving door?
perhaps a “sorry” muttered in a crowd?
a curt “wrong number” caught in the receiver?—
but I know the answer.
No, they don’t remember.

They’d be amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn’t read them yet.
Perhaps three years ago
or just last Tuesday
a certain leaf fluttered
from one shoulder to another?
Something was dropped and then picked up.
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished
into childhood’s thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells
where one touch had covered another
beforehand.
Suitcases checked and standing side by side.
One night, perhaps, the same dream,
grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

The Lord gives everything and charges
by taking it back. What a bargain.
Like being young for a while. We are
allowed to visit hearts of women,
to go into their bodies so we feel
no longer alone. We are permitted
romantic love with its bounty and half-life
of two years. It is right to mourn
for the small hotels of Paris that used to be
when we used to be. My mansard looking
down on Notre Dame every morning is gone,
and me listening to the bell at night.
Venice is no more. The best Greek Islands
have drowned in acceleration. But it’s the having
not the keeping that is the treasure.
Ginsberg came to my house one afternoon
and said he was giving up poetry
because it told lies, that language distorts.
I agreed, but asked what we have
that gets it right even that much.
We look up at the stars and they are
not there. We see the memory
of when they were, once upon a time.
And that too is more than enough.

woke up this morning
feeling excellent,
picked up the telephone
dialed the number of
my equal opportunity employer
to inform him I will not
be into work today
Are you feeling sick?
the boss asked me
No Sir I replied:
I am feeling too good
to report to work today,
if I feel sick tomorrow
I will come in early

Dear white people:
I don’t even know where to start
In between my busy schedule comprised entirely of surviving white America
There is simply no time to write letters
Besides any letter I write will most likely bring tears to your very eyes and I for one have had my fill of white tears
There are days I think you are not worth my ink, that your whiteness is draining me of too much energy
   Can’t give you a taste of tea for fear you’ll  colonize the whole kitchen
But today I am too angry to remain silent

Dear white people:
Stop making everything about you and how uncomfortable you are
I honestly don’t care about your comfort level
You have made my very existence and exercise in discomfort
It is time for you to make room at the table
-Better yet go sit in the living room
I am not here to cuddle your feelings-
   not here for your amusement
NO you cannot touch my hair
-its not a petting zoo
And stop coming into my office asking for the managers if you are not already looking at one

Dear white people:
Dear white people-
Stop telling me about this “COLOUR BLIND SOCIETY”
-you allegedly live in
-telling me you don’t see race is the racist drivel I hope you choke on
-Telling me you respect me, but don’t see my colour
Is like saying you have to pretend that “I AM NOT BLACK”
In order to respect me
   But let me assure you
I AM BLACK ……though there are plenty of things I AM NOT
Like your sassy black friend
 Stop saying “hey girl!”
When you see me
You aren’t that slick
I hear the way you talk to Becky and Steve everyday
   You sound like vocation on Martha’s Vineyard … where you spent summers waiting in the bitter blue of the Atlantic
How I wish my toes could touch the ocean without stepping on the bones of ancestors

Dear white teachers
Why don’t I know whom my ancestors are
Why is only one part of my history important enough to teach
And for the love of the Creator
Stop swivelling your heads every time slavery is mentioned
… Newsflash, I was not there
And just because I am the only black person in this class
Does not mean you can ask me to speak on behalf of my race
I believe you really care about the opinion of black students when stop shutting down conversations because I call a white student racist

Dear white people:
Why do you hate being called racist more than you hate racism
Why do you listen to Tim Wise over actual black people about the actual black experience
_Dear white people:
Stop using black on black crimes as a reason we should not be outrage  by the murder of black people by apartheid system
If a black person kills a black person
   they will go to jail
AND THAT IS WHAT WE CALL JUSTICE
When the apartheid kills a black person,,, they will get paid leave
AND THAT IS WHAT WE CALL JUSTICE
Apparently JUSTICE is when a black body dies

Dear white people:
Everytime we write white
We have written it in lowercase letters
   because we are tired of you capitalising on our pain 
         . We are angry
         . And raw
         . And tired
         . And angry
         . And raw 
         . And tired 
         . And tired
         . And tired
But we will not rest because we know the future belongs to those who prepare for it 

…..And you have been getting us ready for centuries

The mediators, the peacemakers,
the compromise-shapers, the comforters
live in the white house
and get their nourishment from far away,
through winding pipes,
through dark veins,
like a fetus.
Their secretaries are lip sticked and laughing.
Their sturdy chauffeurs wait below,
like horses in a stable,
and the trees that shade them
have their roots in no-man’s land
and the illusions are children
who went out to find cyclamen
and did not come back.

My thoughts pass overhead,
restless, like reconnaissance planes,
and take photos
and develop them in dark sad rooms.

And I know they have heavy chandeliers
and the boy-I-was sits on them
and swings out and back,
out and back,
out till there’s no coming back.

Later on night will arrive
to draw rusty and bent conclusions
from our old lives,
and over all the houses
a melody will gather the scattered word
like a hand gathering crumbs
upon a table after the meal,
when the talk continues
and the children are asleep.
And hopes come to me like bold seafarers,
like the discoverers of continents coming to an island,
and stay for a day or two and rest…
And then again set sail.

.

Rain never takes men unawares:

either the cranes, airborne, fly before it, as it reaches

the valley’s depths, or a heifer looks up at the sky

and sniffs the air with nostrils spread,

or the swallows twitter circling the pools,

and the frogs in the mud croak their ancient lament.

And often the ant, beating out a narrow track,

brings eggs from an innermost nest, and a huge rainbow

drinks, and a great troop of rooks leaving the fields

beat their wings together densely, in ranks.

Then the cruel raven’s deep cry calls up the rain,

and, alone with himself, he walks the dry sands.

Even girls, spinning, at their nocturnal task, have not failed

to note the coming storm, seeing the oil sputter

in the fiery lamp, and a clot of soot gather on the wick.

No less, after rain, do we predict sunlight and clear skies,

and recognize fair weather by certain signs:

since the stars’ sharp edges are not obscured

and the Moon rises, not dimmed by her brother’s rays,

and thin fleecy clouds no longer drift across the sky:

But the mists seek out the valleys more, and settle

on the plains, and the owl, watching the sunset

from some high hill, gives out its twilight calls in vain.

Now the rooks repeat their clear calls, three or four times,

with narrowed throats, and often caw to themselves

in their high nests among the leaves, delighting

in some unusual pleasantry: they’re glad, the rain over,

to see their sweet nests and their little chicks again:

not that I think they have divine wisdom

or greater knowledge of the workings of Fate:

but when the weather changes, and the rain from fickle skies,

and Jupiter, among the wet South winds, makes what was now

rarefied, dense, and makes dense what was rarefied,

ideas in their minds alter, and their hearts feel differently,

differently to when the wind was chasing the clouds.

So that chorus of birds in the fields, the delight

of the cattle, the triumphant cries of the rooks.