Poetry

A preview from her new book, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful

Alice Walker

THE DIAMONDS ON LIZ’S BOSOM

THE DIAMONDS ON LIZ’S BOSOM

The diamonds on Liz’s bosom

are not as bright

as his eyes

the morning they took him

to work in the mines

The rubies in Nancy’s

jewel box (Oh, how he

loves red!)

not as vivid

as the despair

in his children’s

frowns.

Oh, those Africans!

Everywhere you look

they’re bleeding

and crying

Crying and bleeding

on some of the whitest necks

in your town.

MISSISSIPPI WINTER II

When you remember me, my child,

be sure to recall that Mama was

a sinner. Her soul was lost

(according to her mama) the very

first time she questioned God. (It

weighed heavily on her, though she

did not like to tell.)

But she wanted to live and what is more

be happy

a concept not understood before the age

of twenty-one.

She was not happy

with fences.

MISSISSIPPI WINTER III

I cradle my four-year-old daughter

in my arms

alarmed that already she smells

of Love-ls-True perfume.

A present from

her grandmother,

who loves her.

At twenty-nine my own gifts

of seduction

have been squandered. I rise

to Romance

as if it is an Occasional Test

on which my lessons of etiquette

will, thankfully, allow me to fail.

How POEMS ARE MADE/A DISCREDITED VIEW

Letting go

in order to hold on

I gradually understand

how poems are made.

There is a place the fear must go.

There is a place the choice must go.

There is a place the loss must go.

The leftover love.

The love that spills out

of the too full cup

and runs and hides

its too full self

in shame.

I gradually comprehend

how poems are made.

To the upbeat flight of memories.

The flagged beats of the running

heart.

I understand how poems are made.

They are the tears

that season the smile.

The stiff-neck laughter

that crowds the throat.

The leftover love.

I know how poems are made.

There is a place the loss must go.

There is a place the gain must go.

The leftover love.