14 February 2010
Last night my heart threatened to leave me--threatened to find the quickest route out of me, thumped against my chest in a silly attempt to loosen itself from the veins and arteries that bound it to me. My heart doesn’t know me like this: the woman who buries herself under covers, silent & tear-filled, nearly suffocating herself along with her grief. It wanted no part of it. The ox, after twelve inspired + laborious + challenged + charged months, was heading home, carrying Lucille Clifton to the otherworlds, and I was in bed at 9:39 p.m. I was having trouble breathing. Alexander McQueen two mornings ago. Lucille Clifton tonight. My lover & I had walked all over Sunset Park looking for orchids and oranges to celebrate the impending new year. We settled for tangerines with the leaves still on, bought from a woman in a van who bade us an early happy new year. We bought a tiger orchid plant from a woman in Bay Ridge who had a plate full of tiny Buddhas, tiny tigers & miniature oranges and lemons. We played a couple games of pool, then carried the orchid into the movie theatre and watched Benicio del Toro seal the death knell on his movie career. Instead of watching the horror play out, I pulled out my phone and texted my friend Beth, wishing her little Omar a happy 2nd birthday. My lover pulled out her phone, and discovered that Adela’s cat Chester had died. Something was nagging at me. The day before, I’d forgotten to celebrate the four-year death anniversary of my mentor, Herb Scott. My tongue was still stained from the wine I drank to celebrate his birthday, only four days previously. Something was nagging at me, but I was heading home with a tiger orchid in my hand and a bag of fresh vegetables and fruits, thinking about the tiger that was soon to roar in the new year.
It wasn’t long before I found myself quickly deleting a series of emails that seemed to be making my inbox swell, when I had to stop at the subject line: “Mama Lucille Transitions”. Somehow, the images of the remarkably pleasant day I’d just experienced were replaced with a noise I only hear when I don’t want to hear. Suddenly, my head filled up with the last song I’d heard that made me laugh and dance: “Shake shake shake, shake shake shake. . .”.
I went to Facebook to stop myself from giving in to the shakes that were lighting me, casting spells in my bones. I needed to post a Lucille Clifton poem, and just like that, the shakes intensified. My homepage went from various posts about “x” to a hundred poets catching the news early and posting various tributes and poems to and from Lucille Clifton.
From the brief notes:
“RIP Lucille. Thank you for the light.” (Crystal Williams)
“thank you thank you thank you” (Bettina Judd)
“Ms. Lucille Clifton, with my whole heart.” (Elizabeth Butler)
“Lucille Clifton, poet. Blessings on your transition, sistermother.” (Evie Shockley)
to the longer praisesongs and remembrances:
MendiandKeithObadike posted: “What a poet she was/is, what a teacher, what a model, what a guide. Hugging in all of you who were touched by Ms. Lucille Clifton, now our ancestor.”
Kimberly Ann Rogers posted: “oh beloved sister! how does the earth spin now without your voice? into the light beloved Lucille Clifton. Bless our boats from above.”
Tara Betts: “Ms. Lucille Clifton, I loved you for being you, for saying what needed to be said, for always remembering me as soon as you heard my voice, for calling me poet. I miss you already. Rest in Peace.”
Patricia Spears Jones: “sadness at the loss of Lucille Clifton's physical body; gratitude for her words and spirit. "soon we will be done with the troubles of the world" as Mahalia sang. She's done. We have to pick up the work she left for us to do.”
“In 2001 Ms. Lucille turned a room of 1000 novices into poets, bustling unconscious ignorant of the woman at the lecturn. She spoke, they metamorphose into hush, into the kind of listening her poems inspire. First-timers, they laughed like seasoned poets. They sighed. They sobered. Recognized, wanted more in their own...” Jane Alberdeston posted
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: “Lucille Clifton's death news is such a shocker, oh my dear God! I learned so much about her years ago by writing my doctoral oral defense on the topic, "The Influence of The African Oral Tradition on Black American Poetry: A Connection Between Lucille Clifton’s Poetry and its African forebears, using Okot p’Betik’s "So...ng of Lawino" as a Source of Reference." Now I treasure AWP 2009 where I last saw her.”
& Jessie Lee Kercheval encapsulated the hours that Facebook transformed into a Lucille Clifton tribute: “so sad Lucille Clifton has died! But loves that in her FB friend world that sad news and saying how much we loved her, her work, and will miss her is in post after post.”
20 February 2010
It’s now been one week since I read the news, and my heart still flips out a little. There are now more lengthy tributes to Lucille Clifton, and I imagine each of the smaller Lucille Clifton Facebook status update tributes have transformed into poems, have manifested in laughter and dance and groups of friends reading poems to one another. Last night, I listened to Marjorie Eliot play piano, challenging her bass player, often, to a call and response. She was in a gorgeous white shift dress for one set; in a floral flowing print for the second set. She was graceful and elegant and whimsical in her playing. In her, I saw a great and generous mentor, a woman who truly adored her art (and perhaps, as well, that soft-looking leather piano seat that she lifted her floral print over, so her whole lower body could be in contact with the feel of that material). She reminded me of my mother and a little of myself. And there was my heart, returned to me, swollen from swallowing too many words. Lucille Clifton’s words:
i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when a thumb of ice
stamped itself hard near my heart
*
*
for the eyes of the children,
the last to melt,
the last to vaporize
*
*
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
I pleaded with her, could I do,
oh what could I have done?
*
*
i hunger to tunnel back
inside desperate
to reconnect the rib and clay
and to be whole again
*
*
and to be whole again
*
*
and to be whole again
*
*
Lucille Clifton was born on June 27, 1936. She carried a Life Path number of 7: “you entered this plane with a gift for investigation, analysis, and keen observation. You are a thinker of the first order. You evaluate situations very quickly, and with amazing accuracy.” Once, I wrote a poem after Princess Di died. Versace was also dead. Their Life Paths were also 7. In life, they, like Lucille, seemed to harness “spiritual wisdom. . . A built-in inner guide providing a strong sense of intuition”. I met Lucille Clifton once only. And yes, she had that look about her, that thing that made you either shut off your brain, fearing she could finger every syllable you hiccupped, or you pulsed hard, hoping she’d feel you and fill you up.
It is now 24 February 2010. I have not found words easy to come by. I want to say what is hardest to say, what may anger people to hear, but what do I care? I want to speak to you, Lucille Clifton. I want to say thank you for the grace and generosity and integrity of death. Thank you for the grace and generosity and integrity of living. I loved you quietly while you were living, I’ll love you quietly while you’re off in the otherworlds, refashioning yourself, building something new.
Last night my heart threatened to leave me--threatened to find the quickest route out of me, thumped against my chest in a silly attempt to loosen itself from the veins and arteries that bound it to me. My heart doesn’t know me like this: the woman who buries herself under covers, silent & tear-filled, nearly suffocating herself along with her grief. It wanted no part of it. The ox, after twelve inspired + laborious + challenged + charged months, was heading home, carrying Lucille Clifton to the otherworlds, and I was in bed at 9:39 p.m. I was having trouble breathing. Alexander McQueen two mornings ago. Lucille Clifton tonight. My lover & I had walked all over Sunset Park looking for orchids and oranges to celebrate the impending new year. We settled for tangerines with the leaves still on, bought from a woman in a van who bade us an early happy new year. We bought a tiger orchid plant from a woman in Bay Ridge who had a plate full of tiny Buddhas, tiny tigers & miniature oranges and lemons. We played a couple games of pool, then carried the orchid into the movie theatre and watched Benicio del Toro seal the death knell on his movie career. Instead of watching the horror play out, I pulled out my phone and texted my friend Beth, wishing her little Omar a happy 2nd birthday. My lover pulled out her phone, and discovered that Adela’s cat Chester had died. Something was nagging at me. The day before, I’d forgotten to celebrate the four-year death anniversary of my mentor, Herb Scott. My tongue was still stained from the wine I drank to celebrate his birthday, only four days previously. Something was nagging at me, but I was heading home with a tiger orchid in my hand and a bag of fresh vegetables and fruits, thinking about the tiger that was soon to roar in the new year.
It wasn’t long before I found myself quickly deleting a series of emails that seemed to be making my inbox swell, when I had to stop at the subject line: “Mama Lucille Transitions”. Somehow, the images of the remarkably pleasant day I’d just experienced were replaced with a noise I only hear when I don’t want to hear. Suddenly, my head filled up with the last song I’d heard that made me laugh and dance: “Shake shake shake, shake shake shake. . .”.
I went to Facebook to stop myself from giving in to the shakes that were lighting me, casting spells in my bones. I needed to post a Lucille Clifton poem, and just like that, the shakes intensified. My homepage went from various posts about “x” to a hundred poets catching the news early and posting various tributes and poems to and from Lucille Clifton.
From the brief notes:
“RIP Lucille. Thank you for the light.” (Crystal Williams)
“thank you thank you thank you” (Bettina Judd)
“Ms. Lucille Clifton, with my whole heart.” (Elizabeth Butler)
“Lucille Clifton, poet. Blessings on your transition, sistermother.” (Evie Shockley)
to the longer praisesongs and remembrances:
MendiandKeithObadike posted: “What a poet she was/is, what a teacher, what a model, what a guide. Hugging in all of you who were touched by Ms. Lucille Clifton, now our ancestor.”
Kimberly Ann Rogers posted: “oh beloved sister! how does the earth spin now without your voice? into the light beloved Lucille Clifton. Bless our boats from above.”
Tara Betts: “Ms. Lucille Clifton, I loved you for being you, for saying what needed to be said, for always remembering me as soon as you heard my voice, for calling me poet. I miss you already. Rest in Peace.”
Patricia Spears Jones: “sadness at the loss of Lucille Clifton's physical body; gratitude for her words and spirit. "soon we will be done with the troubles of the world" as Mahalia sang. She's done. We have to pick up the work she left for us to do.”
“In 2001 Ms. Lucille turned a room of 1000 novices into poets, bustling unconscious ignorant of the woman at the lecturn. She spoke, they metamorphose into hush, into the kind of listening her poems inspire. First-timers, they laughed like seasoned poets. They sighed. They sobered. Recognized, wanted more in their own...” Jane Alberdeston posted
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: “Lucille Clifton's death news is such a shocker, oh my dear God! I learned so much about her years ago by writing my doctoral oral defense on the topic, "The Influence of The African Oral Tradition on Black American Poetry: A Connection Between Lucille Clifton’s Poetry and its African forebears, using Okot p’Betik’s "So...ng of Lawino" as a Source of Reference." Now I treasure AWP 2009 where I last saw her.”
& Jessie Lee Kercheval encapsulated the hours that Facebook transformed into a Lucille Clifton tribute: “so sad Lucille Clifton has died! But loves that in her FB friend world that sad news and saying how much we loved her, her work, and will miss her is in post after post.”
20 February 2010
It’s now been one week since I read the news, and my heart still flips out a little. There are now more lengthy tributes to Lucille Clifton, and I imagine each of the smaller Lucille Clifton Facebook status update tributes have transformed into poems, have manifested in laughter and dance and groups of friends reading poems to one another. Last night, I listened to Marjorie Eliot play piano, challenging her bass player, often, to a call and response. She was in a gorgeous white shift dress for one set; in a floral flowing print for the second set. She was graceful and elegant and whimsical in her playing. In her, I saw a great and generous mentor, a woman who truly adored her art (and perhaps, as well, that soft-looking leather piano seat that she lifted her floral print over, so her whole lower body could be in contact with the feel of that material). She reminded me of my mother and a little of myself. And there was my heart, returned to me, swollen from swallowing too many words. Lucille Clifton’s words:
i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when a thumb of ice
stamped itself hard near my heart
*
*
for the eyes of the children,
the last to melt,
the last to vaporize
*
*
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
I pleaded with her, could I do,
oh what could I have done?
*
*
i hunger to tunnel back
inside desperate
to reconnect the rib and clay
and to be whole again
*
*
and to be whole again
*
*
and to be whole again
*
*
Lucille Clifton was born on June 27, 1936. She carried a Life Path number of 7: “you entered this plane with a gift for investigation, analysis, and keen observation. You are a thinker of the first order. You evaluate situations very quickly, and with amazing accuracy.” Once, I wrote a poem after Princess Di died. Versace was also dead. Their Life Paths were also 7. In life, they, like Lucille, seemed to harness “spiritual wisdom. . . A built-in inner guide providing a strong sense of intuition”. I met Lucille Clifton once only. And yes, she had that look about her, that thing that made you either shut off your brain, fearing she could finger every syllable you hiccupped, or you pulsed hard, hoping she’d feel you and fill you up.
It is now 24 February 2010. I have not found words easy to come by. I want to say what is hardest to say, what may anger people to hear, but what do I care? I want to speak to you, Lucille Clifton. I want to say thank you for the grace and generosity and integrity of death. Thank you for the grace and generosity and integrity of living. I loved you quietly while you were living, I’ll love you quietly while you’re off in the otherworlds, refashioning yourself, building something new.
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