you tell the stars

don’t be jealous of her light

you tell the ocean,

you call out to Olukun,

to bring her always to

safe harbor,

for she is a holy one

this woman twirling

her emerald lariat

you tell the night

to move gently

into morning so she’s

not startled,

you tell the morning

to ease her into a water

fall of dreams

for she is a holy one

restringing her words

from city to city

so that we live and

breathe and smile and

breathe and love and

breathe her…

this Gwensister called life.

 

Published version from

Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums (1998).

(Sometimes I wonder:

What to say to you now

in the soft afternoon air as you

hold us all in a single death?)

I say—

Where is your fire?

I say—

Where is your fire?

You got to find it and pass it on.

 

You got to find it and pass it on

from you to me from me to her from her

to him from the son to the father from the

brother to the sister from the daughter to

the mother from the mother to the child.

 

Where is your fire?  I say where is your fire?

Can’t you smell it coming out of our past?

The fire of living…not dying

The fire of loving…not killing

The fire of Blackness…not gangster shadows.

Where is our beautiful fire that gave light

to the world?

The fire of pyramids;

The fire that burned through the holes of

slaveships and made us breathe;

 

The fire that made guts into chitterlings;

The fire that took rhythms and made jazz;

 

The fire of sit-ins and marches that made

us jump boundaries and barriers;

The fire that took street talk sounds

and made righteous imhotep raps.

Where is your fire, the torch of life

full of Nzingha and Nat Turner and Garvey

and DuBois and Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin

and Malcolm and Mandela.

Sister/Sistah  Brother/Brotha  Come/Come

 

CATCH YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL

HOLD YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL

LEARN YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL

BE THE FIRE…DON’T KILL

Catch the fire and burn with eyes

that see our souls:

WALKING.

SINGING.

BUILDING.

LAUGHING.

LEARNING.

LOVING.

TEACHING.

BEING.

Hey.  Brother/Brotha.  Sister/Sista.

Here is my hand.

Catch the fire…and live.

live.

livelivelive.

livelivelive.

live.

live.

i have walked a long time

much longer than death that splinters

wid her innuendos

my life, ah my alien life,

is like an echo of nostalgia

bringen blue screens to bury clouds

rinsen wite stones stretched among the sea.

 

                 you, man, will you remember me when I die?

                 you will stare and stain my death and say

                 i saw her dancen among swallows

                 far from the world’s obscenities?

                you, man, will you remember and cry?

 

and I have not loved.

always

while the body prowls

the soul catalogues each step;

while the unconscious unbridles feasts

the flesh knots toward the shore.

ah, I have not loved

wid legs stretched like stalks against sheets

wid stomachs drained the piracy of oceans

wid mouths discarden the gelatin

to shake the sharp self.

i have walked by memory of others

between the blood night

and twilights

i have lived in tunnels

and fed the bloodless fish;

between the yellow rain

and ash,

i have heard the rattle

of my seed,

so time, like some pearl necklace embracen

a superior whore, converges

and the swift spider binds my breast.

 

                 you, man, will you remember me when I die?

                 will you stare and stain my death and say

                 i saw her applauden suns

                 far from the grandiose audience? 

                 you, man, will you remember and cry?