LETTER POEM TO THE POET LUCILLE CLIFTON
ON THE DAY WE BID
FAREWELL TO PASTOR KATHLEEN IN YAKIMA
Dear Mss. Clifton:
You are one of the
gifts we send with Pastor Kathleen.
Partly because of
poets we’re learning to get real.
And you were born
with 12 fingers and 12 toes.
They were removed,
and you had to live
your life, Holy
Sister Priestess, without them.
You grew into
yourself, but how,
Reverend One, Ms.
Clifton,
did you balance
without those toes?
And now we say
goodbye to Pastor Kathleen.
Pastor Kathleen came
to our house
to bless Rex’s
painting of Rosalie Tompkins
and I gave her your
poems.
Ms. Tomkins, a
quilter from Gould, Arkansas,
African American
patchwork threader,
discovered while
sewing pillow cases, listening
as God whispered in
her ear
as she sewed God’s
colors into squares.
God let me see
it, she said. The pool is giving birth
to itself all the
time. Ms. Tompkins became part
of our family that
day, as did, Pastor Kathleen.
Your Big Book, the
collected poems,
brand new, Ms.
Clifton, open on the coffee table,
when Pastor Kathleen
came by.
A quilter yourself,
Lucille Clifton,
asking in a poem,
do the daughters’
daughters quilt?
do the worlds
continue spinning
away from each
other forever?
A
few words about Pastor Kathleen.
Karen
and I gave her your poems for blessing Ms. Tompkins.
Sister
Kathleen can pray, Ms. Clifton.
She
brings the word and asks us to receive what she sends.
She’s
got the same discipline you have.
Words
like seeds. We’d never say Yes
to God if it
wasn’t for faith.
When
she frees the pulpit from fear,
she
frees the pew. Standing against
intimidation,
she said, Repentance
is more important
than worship.
I
wrote it down on the church bulletin.
Pastor
Kathleen blessed us all,
and
as she leaves, she’ll be carrying
your
poems, the two of you, God’s carriers.
Blessing
us, we turn around by blessing others.
This
is the fabric of repentance.
Pulling
back the covers of formality,
I
smile, remembering
B.
B. King’s guitar, also named Lucille,
and
my Mom, Lucille, too.
Pastor
Kathleen, I can tell you, Lucille Clifton,
shares
a weakness for ice cream.
You
two, you go on now.
Both
of you, you’re making us right.
Jim
Bodeen
12
March 2023
Rex
Deloney, African American artist, friend, teacher, prophet, from
Little Rock, Arkansas.
The painting, Mixed Media., by Rex was
commissioned for Karen Bodeen.
RosieLee Tompkins by Rex DeLoney, and bottom,
Rosie Lee Tompkins and Lucille Clifton,
Complete Poems of Lucille Clifton, book cover.