The World Will Follow Joy Read online

  THE WORLD WILL FOLLOW JOY

  ALSO BY ALICE WALKER

  Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems

  A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems and Drawings

  Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth

  Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems

  Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful

  Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning

  Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems

  Once

  THE

  WORLD

  WILL

  FOLLOW

  JOY

  Turning Madness

  into Flowers

  {New Poems}

  ALICE WALKER

  THE NEW PRESS

  NEW YORK

  © 2013 by Alice Walker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form,

  without written permission from the publisher.

  Requests for permission to reproduce selections from this book

  should be mailed to: Permissions Department, The New Press,

  38 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013.

  Published in the United States by

  The New Press, New York, 2013

  Distributed by Perseus Distribution

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Walker, Alice, 1944-

  [Poems. Selections]

  The world will follow joy : turning madness into flowers (new poems) / Alice Walker.

  pages cm

  Poems.

  ISBN 978-1-59558-887-6 (e-book) (print)

  I. Title.

  PS3573.A425W67 2013

  811’.54—dc232012041853

  The New Press publishes books that promote and enrich public discussion and understanding of the issues vital to our democracy and to a more equitable world. These books are made possible by the enthusiasm of our readers; the support of a committed group of donors, large and small; the collaboration of our many partners in the independent media and the not-forprofit sector; booksellers, who often hand-sell New Press books; librarians; and above all by our authors.

  www.thenewpress.com

  Book design by Lovedog Studio

  This book was set in Monotype Walbaum

  10987654321

  Contents

  Foreword

  What Makes the Dalai Lama Lovable?

  If I Was President (“Were” May Be Substituted by Those Who Prefer It)

  From: Poems for My Girls

  Don’t Be Like Those Who Ask for Everything

  Knowing You Might Someday Come

  Turning Madness into Flowers #1

  What It Feels Like

  Before I Leave the Stage

  Remember?

  Working Class Hero

  The Ways of Water

  You Want to Grow Old Like the Carters

  The Answer Is: Live Happily!

  Word Reaches Us

  When You See Water

  This Is a Story of How Love Works

  Alice and Kwamboka

  May It Be Said of Me

  And Do You See What They Have Bought with It?

  She

  Our Martyrs

  The Tree of Life Has Fallen

  To Change the World Enough

  Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

  What Do I Get for Getting Old? A Picture Story for the Curious!

  Desire

  March Births

  Two Boys on a Pink Tricycle

  Coming to Worship the 1,000-Year-Old Cherry Tree

  Listening to Bedouins, Thinking of Bob

  Peonies

  Black and White Cows

  Worms Won’t Need a Menu

  From Paradise to Paradise

  Sailing the Hot Streets of Athens, Greece

  Life Takes Its Own Sweet Time

  One Meaning of the Immaculate Heart

  To Stand Beaming and Clapping

  And in That Sacred Time

  Why Peace Is Always a Good Idea

  Hope

  Tranquil

  The Raping of Maids

  This Human Journey

  In This You Are Wrong

  Hope to Sin Only in the Service of Waking Up

  The Part of God That Stings

  9/11: An Irrelevant Truth

  The Buddha’s Disagreeable Relative

  We Who Have Survived

  Racism Dates Us

  The World We Want Is Us

  The Joyful News of Your Arrest

  Every Revolution Needs Fresh Poems

  The Foolishness of Captivity

  Despair Is the Ground Bounced Back From

  Occupying Mumia’s Cell

  Another Way to Peace

  We Pay a Visit to Those Who Play at Being Dead

  Democratic Womanism

  Democratic Motherism

  After Many Years and Much Silliness

  When I Join You

  Going Out to the Garden

  Notes

  Photo Credits

  In loving memory of Rudolph Byrd

  so deeply missed

  and of the miracle that was our trust.

  And for G. Kaleo Larson

  My working-class hero.

  Foreword

  To a woman in whom the state of true motherhood has awakened, all creatures are her children. This love, this motherhood, is Divine Love—and that is God.

  —Amma

  Turning Madness into Flowers

  It is my thought that the ugliness of war, of gratuitous violence in all its hideous forms, will cease very soon to appeal to even the most insulated of human beings. It will be seen by all for what it is: a threat to our well-being, to our survival as a species, and to our happiness. The brutal murder of our common mother, while we look on like frightened children, will become an unbearable visceral suffering that we will refuse to bear. We will abandon the way of the saw, the jackhammer and the drill. Of bombs, too.

  As religions and philosophies that espouse or excuse violence reveal their true poverty of hope for humankind, there will be a great awakening, already begun, about what is of value in life.

  We will turn our madness into flowers as a way of moving completely beyond all previous and current programming of how we must toe the familiar line of submission and fear, following orders given us by miserable souls who, somehow, have managed to almost completely control us. We will discover something wonderful: that the world really does not enjoy following the dictates of sociopaths and psychopaths, those who treat the earth, our mother, as if she is wrong, and must be constantly corrected, in as sadistic and domineering a way as that of a drunken husband who kills his wife.

  The world—the animals, including us humans—wants to be engaged in something entirely other, seeing, and delighting in, the stark wonder of where we are: This place. This gift. This paradise.

  We want to follow joy.

  And we shall.

  The madness, of course, for each one of us, will have to be sorted out.1

  —Alice Walker

  August 2012

  www.AliceWalkersGarden.com

  What Makes the Dalai Lama Lovable?

  His posture

  From so many years

  Holding his robe with one hand

  Is odd.

  His gait

  Also.

  One’s own body

  Aches

  Witnessing

  The sloping

  Shoulders

  & Angled

  Neck;

  One hopes

  He

  Attends

  Yoga class

  Or does Yoga

  On his own


  As part

  Of prayer.

  He smiles

  As he bows

  To Everything:

  Accepting

  The heavy

  Burdens

  Of

  This earth;

  Its

  Toxic

  Evils

  & Prolific

  Insults.

  Even so,

  He sleeps

  Through

  The night

  Like a child

  Because

  Thank goodness

  That is something

  Else

  Daylong

  Meditation

  Assures.

  You could cry

  Yourself to sleep

  On his behalf

  & He

  Has done that

  Too.

  Life

  Has been

  A great

  Endless

  Tearing away

  For

  Him.

  From

  Mother, Father, Siblings, Country, Home.

  And yet

  Clearly

  His mother

  Loved him;

  His brother & sister

  Too: Even his

  Not so constant father,

  Who

  When Tenzin was

  A boy

  Shared

  With him

  Delicious

  Scraps

  Of

  Succulent

  Pork.

  He laughs

  Telling this

  Story

  Over half a century

  Later

  &

  To who knows

  How many

  Puzzled

  Vegetarians:

  About

  The way he sat

  Behind

  His father’s chair

  Like a dog,

  Relishing

  Each juicy

  Greasy

  Bite.

  Whenever I see

  The Dalai Lama

  My first impulse

  Is to laugh

  I am so happy

  To

  Lay eyes

  On

  One

  So effortlessly

  Beautiful.

  That balding head

  That holds

  A shine;

  Those wire framed

  Glasses

  That might

  Have come

  From

  Anywhere.

  That look of having offered

  All he has.

  He is my teacher;

  Just staying alive.

  Other teachers

  I have had

  Resemble him

  In some way;

  They too

  Were

  &

  Are

  Smart

  And Humble;

  Fascinated

  By Science & things like

  Time,

  Eternity,

  Cause & Effect;

  The Evolution

  Of the Soul.

  A

  Soul

  That

  Might

  Or might not

  Exist.

  They too

  See all of us

  —Banker, murderer, gardener, thief—

  When they look

  Out across

  The world:

  But that is not all

  They see.

  They see our suffering;

  Our striving

  To find

  The right path;

  The one with heart

  We may only

  Have heard about.

  The Dalai Lama is Cool

  A modern word

  For

  “Divine”

  Because he wants

  Only

  Our collective

  Health

  & Happiness.

  That’s it!

  What makes

  Him

  Lovable

  Is

  His holiness.

  ***

  If I Was President (“Were” May Be Substituted by Those Who Prefer It)

  If I was President

  The first thing I would do

  is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.

  No,

  if I was President

  the first thing I would do

  is call Leonard Peltier.

  No,

  if I was President

  the first person I would call

  is that rascal

  John Trudell.

  No,

  the first person I’d call

  is that other rascal

  Dennis Banks.

  I would also call

  Alice Walker.

  I would make a conference call.

  And I would say this:

  Yo, you troublemakers,

  it is time to let all of us

  out of prison.

  Pack up your things.

  Dennis and John,

  collect Alice Walker

  if you can find her:

  in Mendocino, Molokai, Mexico or

  Gaza,

  & head out to the prisons

  where Mumia and Leonard

  are waiting for you.

  They will be traveling

  light.

  Mumia used to own a lot

  of papers

  but they took most of those

  away from him.

  Leonard

  will probably want to drag along

  some of his

  canvases.

  Alice

  who may well be

  shopping

  in New Delhi

  will no doubt want to

  dress up for the occasion

  in a sparkly shalwar kemeez.

  My next call is going to be

  to the Cubans

  all five of them;

  so stop worrying.

  For now, you’re my fish.

  I just had this long letter

  from Alice and she has begged me

  to put an end

  to her suffering.

  What? she said.

  You think these men are the only ones who suffer

  when Old Style America locks them up

  & throws away

  the key?

  I can’t tell you, she goes on,

  the changes

  this viciousness

  has put me through,

  and I have had a child to raise

  & classes to teach

  & food to buy

  and just because

  I’m a poet

  it doesn’t mean

  I don’t have to

  pay the mortgage

  or the rent.

  Yet all these years,

  nearly thirty or something

  of them

  I have been running around

  the country

  and the world

  trying to arouse justice

  for these men.

  Tonsillitis

  hasn’t stopped me.

  Migraine

  hasn’t stopped me.

  Lyme disease

  hasn’t stopped me.

  And why?

  Because

  knowing the country

  that I’m in,

  as you are destined to learn

  it too,

  I know wrong

  when I see it.

  If that chair you’re sitting in

  could speak

  you would have it moved

  to another room.

  You would burn it.

  So, amigos,

  pack your things.

  Alice and John and Dennis

  are on their way.

  They are bringing prayers from Nilak Butler and Bill Wahpepah;

  they are bringing sweet grass and white sage

&nb
sp; from Pine Ridge.

  I am the President

  at least until the Corporations

  purchase the next election,

  and this is what I choose

  to do on my first day.2

  ***

  From: Poems for My Girls

  The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories

  —Pax Ameracauna, chapter 22

  How can Humanity

  look the deer

  in

  the face?

  How can I,

  having erected

  my fence?

  ***

  Don’t be like those who ask for everything

  For Queen Miriam (Makeba) who stood on swollen feet and sang her people to freedom

  Don’t be like those who ask for everything:

  praise, a blurb, a free ride in my rented

  limousine. They ask for everything but never offer

  anything in return.

  Be like those who can see that my feet ache

  from across a crowded room

  that a foot rub

  if I’m agreeable

  never mind the staring

  is the best way to smile

  & say hello

  to me.

  ***

  Knowing You Might Someday Come

  For Kaleo

  Knowing you might someday come

  and how unprepared I’ve always

  been

  like Mr. Sloppy

  in Charles Dickens’

  our Mutual Friend

  I made a list:

  not meat, vegetables, beer and pudding

  but number l, warmth.

  number 2, warmth.

  number 3, warmth.

  number 4, a good snuggler.

  number 5, someone who sings

  while he/she works.

  number 6, a dancer.

  number 7, someone who grows

  & is intrigued by

  the mind. And

  by the spirit too.

  Number 8, someone who is loved

  by animals; and loves

  them back without

  a thought.

  number 9, someone who smells

  delicious.

  number 10, someone whose anger

  lasts no longer than mine.

  number 11, someone who

  stands beside me. behind me. If necessary

  in front of me.

  number 12, someone who

  is a passable cook.

  number 13, Someone who laughs