absence in the palms of my hands
for audre lorde
i will eat the last signs of my weakness
remove the scars of childhood wars
i made you this promise as
humble as mary washing the feet of her savior
it was an unsteady may afternoon &
we were standing in the doorway of the home you had adopted
you let me there with
your head raised and still dreadlocked walking
toward the beginnings of your death
i didn't say i'd never take the chemo you told me
& though i know we must have spoken after this day
these are the last words i ever remember hearing from
you
audre
i learned to face the complexity of living watching you
face the complexity of dying
never do it on your knees never do it with your back turned
never do it with your eyes
low
i learned dialectics watching you at war
a defiant soldier for peace against the serenade of violence
inside & outside
your body a mighty oak refusing
to be scorched in silence
these days
in the face of necessity battles i know i must
never forget the warnings of my woman's flesh
nor lose the terror that keeps me brave*
but this morning your memory informs my tears
thick & isolated
unable to rest
it has been two years now but
death does not know time and
your absence aches in the palms of my hands
but i am also angry
i curse the disease because cancer is not natural
nor the act of an unforgiving God
crossing the world we once shared
i see
poison passed off as food water air as
good earth upon which we may live or clear out
the next rainforest to make room for a grinning clown
& hamburger stand
the whole world
is being nourished on big macs & radon
staring westward at hollywood for daily salvation
& we do not understand our 5 year olds
when their eyes melt
& they do not scream only
shrug
in the solitude of my writing i place
your poetry around me like a makeshift altar
& pray my generation of poet-historians
will abandon any urge toward the mirage of relevance created 'cause
WE BLEW UP THE SPOT YO!
in the urgent hour of now
we need stories beyond shock value whose
focus is transformation
or at least the prayer that
we will write no words we will not want spoken out of
the mouths of our children
that we will owe nothing we cannot repay.*
*from "Solstice" by Audre Lorde (in Black Unicorn)
__________________________________
absence in the palms of my hands
asha bandele
Harlem River Press, 1996
