TO THE QUILTER, LUCILLE CLIFTON, WHO CAME ON BOARD

 

TO THE QUILTER, LUCILLE CLIFTON,

WHO CAME ON BOARD WITH THE BLESSING OF THE BOATS

Your poems arrive with pie cherries

from a friend. The dedication, BF,

ma, mommy, grandma, lu,

on pages laid out with so much space

each line relaxes into itself,

your embracing arms.

Michael Glaser and Kevin Young careful.

My mother’s name, Lucille.

A granddaughter, 15, with your names in the middle.

A foundation and brick. Book coming in at 769 pages,

and this is betterness

These are good times

and when these poems come out

I’m just back from Viet Nam,

still don’t know how I found them.

my mama moved among the days

like a dream walker in a field

you’re born in 1936, where I’m going,

quilter. The Colorist Rex DeLoney

brings Colorist Rosie Lee Tompkins

into our family with a painting

he calls Quilt for Rosie Lee,

you two born in the same year,

you two shaping ways we breathe.

Rosie Lee faces my wife Karen,

two quilters while I read

somewhere in the other where

lines collapsing around

the yellow-eyed woman

looking at us in a living room

where/ alchemists mumble over pots

*

Your uncollected poems up front

and throughout, the R.I.P.

5/23/67 for Langston

Oh who gone remember now like it was

the early capital letters, Dear Mama,

all that i do

i do for you

Adhering to gift principles

the gift must always move

poems and quilts blessed by the pastor

they’re all women now

Lucille entering with Rosie Lee

my mother Lucille, too,

like she just got off the bus.

House full of Cele and Lucy and Lu.

Mysterious Luz Belle, smiles

all around coming from El Salvador,

these blessings moving things around

every poet envious of shaman fingers

I get your poems for the pastor

leaving songs of Rhiannon Giddens

by your portrait on jacket of the book.

I read your Crazy Horse poems.

Spirit bird women all

I promise pastor a slice of cherry pie.

*

What’s going on here in poems

happens in needle and thread,

happens in pillow cases

of transfigurations.

Tony Morrison chides scholars.

Where’s the work on Clifton?

Page beautiful forces my read in kind.

Tiny mirrored squared bullets in black ink.

look i am the one what burned down the dew drop inn

I would write on that line and the willie poems

Precision of voice and story, direct line to and from danger

with a truckload of library credibility

and direct access to archives.

Liminal space on pages with time to breathe and recover between poems.

Burning pages. Women at kitchen table. Cherry pie.

In the meantime. I’d go there. Already and Not Yet.

Old Testament witness

Animal blood, night vision, certainties

All that is uncollected belonging and here, part of us,

merciful meaning, mean, meantime

All for mama, all of it, quilts taken down from walls warming,

scholarship of the heart mama’s burning poems remaining

Jim Bodeen

July, 2021