Once
POEMS BY ALICE WALKER
For Howard Zinn
Poverty was not a calamity for me. It was always balanced by the richness of light … circumstances helped me. To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.
—Albert Camus, De l’envers et l’endroit
CONTENTS
African Images, Glimpses from a Tiger’s Back
Love
Karamojans
Once
Chic Freedom’s Reflection
South: The Name of Home
Hymn
The Democratic Order: Such Things in Twenty Years I Understood
They Who Feel Death
On being asked to leave a place of honor for one of comfort
The Enemy
Compulsory Chapel
To the Man in the Yellow Terry
The Kiss
What Ovid Taught Me
Mornings
So We’ve Come at Last to Freud
Johann
The Smell of Lebanon
Warning
The Black Prince
Medicine
ballad of the brown girl
Suicide
Excuse
to die before one wakes must be glad
Exercises on Themes from Life
A Biography of Alice Walker
AFRICAN IMAGES
Glimpses from a Tiger’s Back
i
Beads around my neck
Mt. Kenya away over pineappled hills
Kikuyuland.
ii
A book of poems
Mt. Kenya’s
Bluish peaks
“Wangari!”*
My new name.
iii
A green copse
And hovering
Quivering
Near our bus
A shy gazelle.
iv
morning mists
On the road
an Elephant
He knows
his rights.
v
A strange noise!
“Perhaps an elephant
is eating our roof”
In the morning
much blue.
vi
A tall warrior
and at his feet
only
Elephant bones.
vii
Elephant legs
In a store
To hold
Umbrellas.
viii
A young man
Puts a question
In his language
I invariably
End up
Married.
ix
The clear Nile
A fat crocodile
Scratches his belly
And yawns.
x
The rain forest
Red orchids—glorious!
And near one’s eyes
The spinning cobra.
xi
A small boat
A placid lake
Suddenly at one’s hand
Two ears—
Hippopotamus.
xii
An ocean of grass
A sea of sunshine
And near my hand
Water buffalo.
xiii
See! through the trees!
A leopard in
the branches—
No, only a giraffe
Munching his dinner.
xiv
Fast rapids
Far below
Begins
The lazy Nile.
xv
A silent lake
Bone strewn banks
Luminous
In the sun.
xvi
Uganda mountains
Black soil
White snow
And in the valley
Zebra.
xvii
African mornings
Are not for sleeping
In the early noon
The servant comes
To wake me.
xviii
Very American
I want to eat
The native food—
But a whole goat!
xix
Holding three fingers
The African child
Looked up at me
The sky was very Blue.
xx
In the dance
I see a girl
Go limp
“It is a tactic”
I think.
xxi
“America!?” “Yes.”
“But you are like
my aunt’s cousin
who married so-and-so.”
“Yes, (I say), I know.”
xxii
On my knees
The earringed lady
Thinks I’m praying
She drops her sisal
and runs.
xxiii
“You are a Negro?”
“Yes”
“But that is a kind
of food—isn’t it—
the white man used to
eat you???”
“Well—”
xxiv
Unusual things amuse us
A little African girl
Sees my white friend
And runs
She thinks he wants her
xxv
The fresh corpse
Of a white rhinoceros
His horn gone
Some Indian woman
Will be approached
Tonight.
xxvi
The man in the
Scarlet shirt
Wanted to talk
but had no words—
I had words
but no Scarlet
Shirt.
xxvii
floating shakily down the
nile
on my rented raft
I try to be a native
queen
a prudent giraffe
on the bank
turns up
his nose.
xxviii
We eat Metoke*
with three fingers—
other things
get two fingers
and one of those
a thumb.
xxix
That you loved me
I felt sure
Twice you asked
me gently
if I liked the
strange
gray
stew.
xxx
Pinching both my legs
the old man kneels
before me on the
ground
his head white
Ah! Africa’s mountain
Peaks
Snow to grace
eternal spring!
xxxi
To build a hut
One needs mud
and sisal
And friendly
Neighbors.
xxxii
Where the glacier was
A lake
Where the lake is
Sunshine
And redheaded
Marabou storks.
xxxiii
On a grumpy day
An African child
Chants “good morning”
—I have never seen
Such bright sun!
xxxiv
The Nairobi streets
At midnight
Deserted
The hot dog man
Folds up his cart.
xxxv
In Nairobi
I
pestered an
Indian boy to
Sell me a
Hat
For five shillings—
How bright
His eyes were!
xxxvi
In a kunzu
Long and white
Stands my African
Dad
The sound of drums
Fills
The air!
xxxvii
On my brother’s motorcycle
The Indian mosques
And shops fade behind us
My hair takes flight
He laughs
He has not seen such hair
Before.
xxxviii
An African girl
Gives me a pineapple
Her country’s national
Flower
How proudly she
Blinks the eye
Put out
By a sharp pineapple
Frond.
I wonder if I should
Kneel
At her bare little
Feet?
xxxix
At first night
I sat alone
& watched the
sun set
behind
the
aberdares
During
the day
my legs
and the sun
belonged
to
the village
children.
xl
Under the moon
luminous
huts. …
Brown breasts stuck
out to taunt
the sullen wind.
xli
A crumbling hut…
in the third
room
a red chenille
bedspread
(by Cannon)
a cracked
jar
of violet
lilies
(by?)
xlii
The native women
thought me
strange
until they
saw me follow you
to your hut.
xliii
In Kampala
the young king
goes often
to Church
the young girls here
are
So pious.
xliv
Settled behind
tall banana trees
the little hut
is overcovered
by their leaves
for autumn
which never comes.…
xlv
in my journal
I thought I could
capture
everything.…
Listen!
the soft wings of cranes
sifting the salt sea
air.
* Kikuyu clan name indicating honorary acceptance into the Leopard clan.
* A food staple of the Buganda in Uganda, made from plantains.
LOVE
i
A dark stranger
My heart searches
Him out
“Papa!”
ii
An old man in white
Calls me “mama”
It does not take much
To know
He wants me for
His wife—
He has no teeth
But is kind.
iii
The American from
Minnesota
Speaks Harvardly
of Revolution—
Men of the Mau Mau
Smile
Their fists holding
Bits of
Kenya earth.
iv
A tall Ethiopian
Grins at me
The grass burns
My bare feet.
v
Drums outside
My window
Morning whirls
In
I have danced all
Night.
vi
The bearded Briton
Wears a shirt of
Kenya flags
I am at home
He says.
vii
Down the hill
A grove of trees
And on this spot
The magic tree.
viii
The Kenya air!
Miles of hills
Mountains
And holding both
My hands
A Mau Mau leader.
ix
And in the hut
The only picture—
Of Jesus
x
Explain to the
Women
In the village
That you are
Twenty
And belong—
To no one.
KARAMOJANS
i
A tall man
Without clothes
Beautiful
Like a statue
Up close
His eyes
Are running
Sores.
ii
The Noble Savage
Erect
No shoes on his
feet
His pierced ears
Infected.
iii
“Quite incredible—
your hair-do is
most divine——
Held together
With cow dung?
You mean——?!
The lady stares
At her fingers.
iv
A proper English meal
Near the mountains
“More tea, please”
Down the street
A man walks
Quite completely
Nude.
v
Bare breasts loose
In the sun
The skin cracked
The nipples covered
With flies
But she is an old
Woman
What?—twenty?
vi
A Catholic church
The chaste cross
Stark
Against the purple sky.
We surprise a
couple there alone
In prayer?
vii
There is no need for
Sadness
After the dying boy
There is the living girl
Who throws you a kiss.
viii
How bright the little
girl’s
Eyes were!
a first sign of
Glaucoma.
ix
The Karamojans
Never civilized
A proud people
I think there
Are
A hundred left.
ONCE
i
Green lawn
a picket fence
flowers—
My friend smiles
she had heard
that Southern
jails
were drab.
Looking up I see
a strong arm
raised
the Law
Someone in America
is being
protected
(from me.)
In the morning
there was
a man in grey
but the sky
was blue.
ii
“Look at that nigger
with those white folks!”
My dark
Arrogant friend
turns calmly, curiously
helpfully,
“Where?” he
asks.
It was the fifth
arrest
In as many
days
How glad I am
that I can
look
&nbs
p; surprised
still.
iii
Running down
Atlanta
streets
With my sign
I see heads
turn
Eyes
goggle
“a nice girl
like her!”
A Negro cook
assures
her mistress—
But I had seen
the fingers
near her eyes
wet with
tears.
iv
One day in
Georgia
Working around
the Negro section
My friend got a
letter
in
the mail
—the letter
said
“I hope you’re
having a good
time fucking all
the niggers.”
“Sweet,” I winced.
“Who
wrote it?”
“mother.”
she
said.
That day she sat
a long time
a little black girl
in pigtails
on her lap
Her eyes were very
Quiet.
She used to tell the big colored ladies
her light eyes just
the same
“I am alone
my mother died.”
Though no other
letter
came.
v
It is true—
I’ve always loved
the daring
ones
Like the black young
man
Who tried
to crash
All barriers
at once,
wanted to
Swim
At a white
beach (in Alabama)
Nude.
vi
Peter always
thought
the only
way to
“enlighten”
southern towns
was to
introduce
himself
to
the county
sheriff
first thing.
Another thing
Peter wanted—
was to be
cremated
but we
couldn’t
find him
when he needed it.
But he was just a yid
seventeen.
vii
I
never liked
white folks
really
it
happened quite
suddenly
one
day
A pair of
amber
eyes
I
think
he
had.
viii
I don’t think
integration
entered
into it
officer
You see
there was
this little
Negro
girl
Standing here
alone
and her
mother
went into
that store
there
then—
there came by
this little boy
here
without his
mother
& eating
an
ice cream cone
—see there it is—
strawberry
Anyhow
and the little
girl was
hungry
and stronger
than
the little
boy—
Who is too