A Poem Traveled Down My Arm Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  THIS IS A STRANGE BOOK

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  About the Author

  ALSO BY ALICE WALKER

  Copyright Page

  To water

  poems and

  drawings

  Until grief is restored

  in the West as

  the starting place where

  the man and woman

  might find peace,

  the culture will continue

  to abuse and ignore

  the power of water,

  and in turn will be

  fascinated with fire.

  —Malidoma Patrice Somé,

  THE HEALING WISDOM OF AFRICA

  THIS IS A STRANGE BOOK

  This is a strange little book. It is like a plant in one’s garden whose seed was blown in by the wind.

  The story of A Poem Traveled Down My Arm is this: After giving up writing altogether—after more than thirty years of writing, I thought it was time— I had written a book of poems, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth, while on retreat in Mexico. My editor asked me to pre-autograph “tip-in sheets” for the new volume, and sent me five hundred. Signing these sheets of paper, which would later be “tipped” into the book and bound, would save me time later on autographing copies of the book at bookstores; readers, I think, like to buy books that are autographed. So I sat down near a sunny window, and between cooking and gardening and traveling and so on, I signed all five hundred sheets. By now, my autograph has become a scrawl, illegible to anyone but myself, and so I’ve begun to think of it not as words, but as a design. I sent the signed sheets off. A few days or weeks later, I was asked to autograph another thousand. I came face-to-face with how boring it is to write one’s own name. Unlike many people who are asked for autographs and who willingly give them no matter what else they might be doing, I will often refuse. Gently and graciously, usually. Or I will explain: No, I am on my way to the dentist, a funeral, grocery shopping, this is not a good time. By now I must have written my name a million times.

  As I began signing sheets of the quite high stack of blank paper, my pen joined me in boredom at writing my name. It began to draw things instead. I was delighted. There was an elephant! A giraffe! A sun! A moon! Hair!

  And at the same time, as if completely over the mundane task of writing my name, we, my pen and I, began to write poems.

  I was working in the dining room and keeping an ear open to things cooking on the stove in the kitchen. Sometimes I would rush to stir the soup, and a poem would bubble up so quickly I had to forget the soup and rush back to write the poem. For a while I simply signed the drawings and left them in the stack. I thought: How sweet to offer this signed drawing to the person who buys this book, rather than a scrawled signature. But the poems and drawings started to form something that I thought I might like to experience myself, so I pulled them out of the stack.

  I saw that the poems spoke a different poem-language than I usually use, which meant I was somewhere, within myself, new. The drawings reflected the fact that I don’t know how to draw, and yet, like folk art all over the world, they had Life. Stuffing them under a cushion because they seemed awkward wouldn’t work, because they did have this life; they would peek out.

  And that, dear reader, is the story. Not all of it, of course. Because. It is really a story about exhaustion. About deciding to quit. About attempting to give up what it is not in one’s power to give up: one’s connection to the Source. Being taught this lesson. Ultimately it is a story about Creativity, the force that surges and ebbs in all of us, and links us to the Divine.

  In A Poem Traveled Down My Arm there is a poem that goes like this:

  What hair

  we here!

  Mandela

  Douglass

  Einstein

  Between assassination

  suicide

  living

  happily.

  On the page following this poem there is a drawing of their hair. Mandela’s is a mandala of curled and tightly spiraled rosettes, all happy to grow over and around one another. Frederick Douglass’s hair, the mane of a man who would not be a slave and definitely would not be badly dressed once he was free, is an attitudinal, kinky fluff that hangs to his neck. It was white as snow during much of his life, and must have lit up every room he entered, like a moon. Einstein’s mind-blown locks speak to the naturalness that true creativity demands. He had seen where we’re headed: The Third World War may be fought with bombs, he declared, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones. Or words to that effect. Hair care was the least of it. And so his hair defines the expression “every which a way.”

  Mandela a “terrorist,” Mandela with a price on his head, or on any piece of him, in fact; Mandela in prison for twenty-seven years; Mandela with a free heart. Douglass the same: enslavement, refusal of enslavement, flight, resistance, rebellion. Free heart. Einstein different, but similar: He saw humanity’s enslavement to its fear of itself, where such fear would lead. Still he enjoyed some very good days.

  And so it can be with us. And so says the poem:

  Between assassination

  suicide

  living

  happily.

  1

  Because

  you rubbed

  my shoulder

  last night

  a poem

  traveled down

  my arm.

  Living

  this year

  in

  disaster:

  How

  is

  it different?

  No one

  has

  escaped

  a

  blessing.

  2

  There is

  no God

  but

  Love

  Helpfulness

  is

  Its

  name.

  Air

  is God

  & connects

  us.

  3

  Every time

  you

  die

  you live

  differently.

  You cannot

  eat

  money

  if you could

  it would

  make

  you

  sick.

  Removing

  the

  boulder

  reveals

  the

  message

  underneath.

  Buddha

  helps

  us up

  while

  lying

  down.

  4

  The right road

  disappears

  beneath

  our

  feet.

  Goddess looks

  through

  your eyes

  is

  your hand.

  The end

  is coming

  yesterday

  it was

  here
r />   too.

  Earth

  is

  too wet

  to be

  a

  machine.

  Those

  who remember

  have

  been touched

  by us.

  5

  Unload

  the

  useless

  information

  say

  farewell

  to

  comparing

  mind.

  Balance

  She is

  not

  dead

  who left

  her

  giggle

  in

  your

  empty

  field.

  You will

  be

  tried

  in the

  fires

  of

  small talk.

  Your

  suffering

  from

  witticisms

  will

  be

  endless.

  6

  Fifty years

  to see

  the flower

  at

  my birth.

  7

  Snake

  they

  separated

  us.

  Feed

  the

  stranger

  under

  your

  coat.

  8

  The dead

  do not

  have

  long

  to wait

  for birth.

  9

  She

  comes

  from

  heaven

  unannounced

  10

  Birth

  is

  so

  endless

  Who

  dies

  being

  born?

  Love

  your

  friends.

  We do not

  know

  anything

  think

  of that.

  To remember

  is

  to plan.

  11

  River runs

  from us;

  Lake sees.

  Mind

  shine.

  12

  Leonard

  was right

  to

  love

  Virginia.

  Virginia

  was

  right

  to be

  insane.

  Who can

  bear

  to know

  what evil

  lurks

  in our bowl

  of peas?

  13

  Who is

  in charge

  loses.

  Inflation

  is

  prelude.

  A million

  blessings

  no one

  home

  in us.

  14

  What is

  a promise

  if

  not

  your

  hand

  in mine?

  Fearless

  lie down

  beside me

  I cannot

  bite emptiness.

  The straight

  path

  follows

  an endless

  curve.

  15

  When we

  have changed

  everything

  we will eat

  congratulations

  with

  our tea.

  No one

  can end

  suffering

  except

  through

  dance.

  Who dives

  knows

  water

  ways.

  16

  Why not

  choose?

  What is

  this

  cradle

  (of civilization)

  but

  the

  grave?

  Do not

  cling

  to being

  lost.

  What hair

  we here!

  Mandela

  Douglass

  Einstein

  Between assassination

  suicide

  living

  happily.

  17

  Understanding

  war

  I do not

  harm

  myself.

  The Navy

  so

  loud

  whales cannot

  believe

  our

  silence.

  Silent Spring

  birds

  even we

  have lost

  our

  voice.

  The crushed

  teapot

  in

  the rubbish

  of the

  bulldozed

  house

  will sing

  in your

  ears

  forever.

  That is

  the law.

  The more

  intelligence

  the fewer

  wars

  children.

  Not buying

  war

  grief

  remains

  unsold.

  Neither

  the war

  nor

  the

  infant

  was sent

  to save

  us

  from

  our

  fate.

  What do Indians dance

  into

  their dance?

  Recognize

  karma

  y

  el

  destino.

  Who taught us

  to ask

  for

  that

  which

  makes

  us

  weep?

  Why is

  Earth

  saying

  yes, yes

  smiling?

  18

  What do Africans

  know

  that

  they

  are

  no longer

  telling

  us?

  Mother Africa

  turns

  her head

  away:

  blood on

  her

  head

  on

  her

  shoe.

  She knows.

  There is

  no God

  but

  God

  who closes

  windows.

  You will

  long

  for

  me

  I am

  inside.

  Her world

  understands

  us

  as

  The people who eat:

  They who

  bring

  death.

  You can buy

  a piece

  of

  Antiquity

  to impress

  your

  friends.

  Half of it

  was

  crushed to dust

  by Saviors

  blew

  away.

  Civilization

  was

  an excuse.

  Of what

  do

  Palestinians

  dream

  could we

  live

  there?

  To live

  in this world

  is to accept

  torture

  even

  of

  tomatoes.

  Who knew?

  Not to have

  faith—

  Time is

  too

&nb
sp; long!

  19

  Release

  the tyranny

  of

  white:

  Paint your

  house

  to open

  the heart

  shelter

  the soul;

  eat

  yams.

  Release

  the tyranny

  of

  black:

  Worship

  snow;

  eat

  escargot.

  Release

  the tyranny

  of

  gender:

  Make

  love

  not

  pro-

  gramming.

  Reborn

  a

  persimmon

  tree

  no mystery

  how

  to

  behave.

  But that

  takes

  Time.

  20

  Buddha nature

  not

  a gift

  from

  Buddha

  but

  from

  nature.

  The living

  die

  when dead

  men fight.

  The old woman

  sits beside

  the window

  that was

  destroyed.

  How can

  you tell

  she is

  not you?

  Know

  the

  notion

  of bombing

  you

  was

  no

  friend

  of

  mine.

  Who can dance

  footless?

  Woman

  reborn

  as

  man

  do

  not forget

  this life.

  Man

  reborn

  as

  woman

  do not

  give

  in

  to

  fear.

  Take a