Gray Family Reunion 2013 Long Beach, California

Ai

Conversation 

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

A poem a day for 2013 - day 181 - Cheers

To the moment
To myself for holding hope for tomorrow
For being brave enough to show up for today
To art
To poetry
To thoughts drifting to pink and bunnies
Here's to reminding myself over and over
To focus on the now
Here's to the now
Here's to my chin above water

Shout out to silence
To meditation on easy
To not knowing what the end gon be
Here's to my feet ever step by stepping it
Worry is a choice
Fear is an option
Worry and fear are never far away
Don't doubt my faith
You don't know me like that

Wouldn't take nothin' for my journey now
But some socks for my feet
A new basket for the hospital bills
You don't know nothin' 'bout how I press on

I am enough for right now
I have enough for this moment
Don't mind me
I am reminding myself

I am a swimmer
I am a survivor

I am a prayer
I am a whisper
I am a tear
I am Almond Joy at the checkout stand
I have no limitations

Let me tell you how to be my friend
Let me tell you how to hold my hand and just get me
Let me tell you you don't have to have words to say
Let me tell you I am afraid
Let me tell you I know how to breathe
Let me tell you how courageous I am

Here's to the woman in my mirror
To Spirit who connects me to all
Here's to Force
To my feet on the ground
Hallelujah for the pillow under my head

Prayers for a quiet mind to sleep
For a cool bed on a hot night and a sheet over my shoulder
This is for this breath
For the concern in my gait
The heavy in my listening

This is for the layers
That I am

Lucille Clifton

Sisters

me and you be sisters.
we be the same.

me and you
coming from the same place.

me and you
be greasing our legs
touching up our edges.

me and you
be scared of rats
be stepping on roaches.

me and you
come running high down purdy street one time
and mama laugh and shake her head at
me and you.

me and you
got babies
got thirty-five
got black
let our hair go back
be loving ourselves
be loving ourselves
be sisters.

only where you sing,
I poet.

Jaha Zainabu Photography - self portrait