The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (5 page)

1968

We went there to confer

On the possibility of

Blackness

And the inevitability of

Revolution

We talked about

Black leaders

And Black Love

We talked about

Women

And Black men

No doubt many important

Resolutions

Were passed

As we climbed Malcolm's ladder

But the most

Valid of them

All was that

Rap chose me

He has a girl who has flaxen hair

My woman has hair of gray

I have a woman who wakes up at dawn

His girl can sleep through the day

His girl has hands soothed with perfumes sweet

She has lips soft and pink

My woman's lips burn in midday sun

My woman's hands—black like ink

He can make music to please his girl

Night comes I'm tired and beat

He can make notes, make her heart beat fast

Night comes I want off my feet

Maybe if I don't pick cotton so fast

Maybe I'd sing pretty too

Sing to my woman with hair of gray

Croon softly, Baby it's you.

I came to the crowd seeking friends

I came to the crowd seeking love

I came to the crowd for understanding

I found you

I came to the crowd to weep

I came to the crowd to laugh

You dried my tears

You shared my happiness

I went from the crowd seeking you

I went from the crowd seeking me

I went from the crowd forever

You came, too

For three hours (too short for me)

I sat in your home and enjoyed

Your own special brand of Southern

Hospitality

And we talked

I had come to learn more about you

To hear a human voice without the Top Ten in the background

You offered me cheese and Horowitz and

It was relaxing

You gave me a small coke

And some large talk about being Black

And an individual

You had tried to fight the fight I'm fighting

And you understood my feelings while you

Picked my brains and kicked my soul

It was a pleasant evening

When He rises and Black is king

I won't forget you

I stood still and was a mushroom on the forest green

With all the
moiles
conferring as to my edibility

It stormed and there was no leaf to cover me

I was water-logged (having absorbed all that I could)

I dreamed I was drowning

That no sun from Venice would dry my tears

But a silly green cricket with a pink umbrella said

Hello          Tell me about it

And we talked our way through the storm

Perhaps we could have found an inn

Or at least a rainbow somewhere over

But they always said

Only one          Only one more

And Christmas being so near

We over identified

Though I worship nothing (save myself)

You were my savior—so be it

And it was

Perhaps not never more or ever after

But after all—once you were mine

We met in

The Digest

Though I had

Never Known You

Tall and Black

But mostly in

The Viet Cong

Image

You didn't smile

Until we had traded

Green stamps

for Brownie Points

So I met this man

Who was a publisher

When he was young

Who is a poet now

Gentle and loving and

Very patient

With a Revolutionary

Black woman

Who drags him

to meetings

But never quite

Gets around to

saying

I love you

There were fields where once we walked

Among the clover and crab grass and those

Funny little things that look like cotton candy

There were liquids expanding and contracting

In which we swam with amoebas and other Afro-Americans

The sun was no further than my hand from your hair

Those were barefoot boy with cheeks of tan days

And I was John Henry hammering to get in

I was the camel with a cold nose

Now, having the tent, I have no use for it

I have pushed you out

Go 'way

Can't you see I'm lonely

I am always lonely

for things I've never had

and people I've never been

But I'm not really

sad

because you once said

Come

and I did

even though I don't like

you

And this silly wire

(which some consider essential)

Connected us

And we came together

So I put my arms around you to keep you

From falling from a tree

(there is evidence that you have climbed

too far up and are not at all functional

with this atmosphere or terrain)

And if I had a spare

I'd lend you my oxygen tent

But you know how selfish people are

When they have something at stake

So we sit between a line of

Daggers

And if all goes well

They will write Someday

That you and I did it

And we never even thought for sure

(if thought was one of the processes we employed)

That it could be done