running into a new year

I kind of can't believe it's already the end of April? But here we are: the last poem for this year! See y'all in Houston next year. ♥

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

—Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), "i am running into a new year," published in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (1987).

arrogance in the universe

I love Lucille Clifton for a lot of reasons, but one of the things I love about her poetry is that she just never pulls her punches even a little, and it's pretty glorious. Today this poem is dedicated to the cramps I've had for two days, and also, like, Andrew Cuomo.

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn't believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

—Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), "wishes for sons" from Quilting: Poems 1987-1990.

sail through this

                            (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

—Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), "blessing the boats," in this case from Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000. 

amid such choruses of desire

I find this poem both utterly beautiful and utterly devastating.

who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be

beautiful      who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals

that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin


sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls      clicking their bony fingers

envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh


they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own

cupped hands      enough not me again
enough      but who can distinguish

one human voice
amid such choruses of desire

—Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), "sorrows," September 2007.

starshine and clay

This is only a little poem, but it packs a punch; that's one of my favorite things about Lucille Clifton poetry, I think: it sneaks up on you.

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.

~Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), "won't you celebrate with me", from The Book of Light, 1993.

It's still too early in the season for rhubarb, but I bought ramps and spinach at the farmer's market this morning, and I am going to make a coffee cake with strawberries this afternoon, rhubarb or no rhubarb. I am so thrilled about being in Madison through August -- even with the humidity and the mosquitoes, I love this town in the summer. And I'll be back in New England for autumn.