Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (4 page)

and your sister

plant a tree

When they assassinate

your leaders

and lovers

plant a tree

When they torture you

too bad

to talk

plant a tree.

When they begin to torture

the trees

and cut down the forest

they have made

start another.

Well.

He was a poet

a priest

a revolutionary

compañero

and we were right

to be seduced.

He brought us greetings

from his countrypeople

and informed us

with lifted

fist

that they would not

be moved.

All his poems

were eloquent.

I liked

especially

the one

that said

the revolution

must

liberate

the cougars, the trees,

and the lakes;

when he read it

everyone

breathed

relief;

ecology

lives

of all places

in Central

America!

we thought.

And then he read

a poem

about Grenada

and we

smiled

until he began

to describe

the women:

Well. One woman

when she smiled

had shiny black

lips

which reminded him

of black legs

(vaselined, no doubt),

her whole mouth

to the poet

revolutionary

suddenly

a leg

(and one said

What?)

Another one,

duly noted by

the priest,

apparently

barely attentive

at a political

rally

eating

a mango

Another wears

a red dress,

her breasts

(no kidding!)

like coconuts .…

Well. Nobody ever said

supporting other people’s revolutions

wouldn’t make us

ill:

But what a pity

that

the poet

the priest

and the revolution

never seem

to arrive

for the black woman,

herself.

Only for her black lips

or her black leg

does one or the other

arrive;

only for her

devouring mouth

always depicted

in the act

of eating

something colorful

only for her breasts

like coconuts

and her red dress.

The world is full of colored

people

People of Color

Tra-la-la

The world is full of

colored people

Tra-la-la-la-la.

They have black hair

and black and brown

eyes

The world is full of

colored people

Tra-la-la.

The world is full of colored

people

People of Color

Tra-la-la

The world is full of colored

people

Tra-la-la-la-la.

Their skins are pink and yellow

and brown

All colored people

People of Color

Colored people

Tra-la-la.

Some have full lips

Some have thin

Full of colored people

People of Color

Colored lips

Tra-la-la.

The world is full of

colored people

People of Color

Colorful people

Tra-la-la!

These days I think of Belvie

swimming happily in the country pond

coating her face with its mud.

She says:

“We could put the whole bottom of this pond in jars

and sell it to the folks

in the city!”

Lying in the sun she dreams

of making our fortune, à la Helena Rubenstein.

Bottling the murky water

too smelly to drink,

offering exotic mud facials and mineral baths

at exorbitant fees.

But mostly she lies in the sun

dreaming of water, sun and the earth

itself—

Surely the earth can be saved for Belvie.

These days I think of Robert

folding his child’s tiny shirts

consuming
TV
dinners (“A kind of
processed
flavor”)

rushing off each morning to school—then to the office,

the supermarket, the inevitable meeting: writing,

speaking, marching against oppression, hunger,

ignorance.

And in between having a love affair

with tiny wildflowers and gigantic

rocks.

“Look at this one!” he cries,

as a small purple face

raises its blue eye to the sun.

“Wow, look at that one!” he says,

as we pass a large rock

reclining beside the road.

He is the man with child

the new old man.

Brushing hair, checking hands, nails

and teeth.

A sick child finds comfort

lying on his chest all night

as do I.

Surely the earth can be saved for Robert.

These days I think of Elena.

In the summers, for years, she camps

beside the Northern rivers

sometimes with her children

sometimes with women friends

from “way, way back.”

She is never too busy to
want
at least

to join a demonstration

or to long to sit

beside

a river.

“I will not think less of you

if you do
not
attend this meeting,” she says,

making us compañeras for life.

Surely the earth can be saved for Elena.

These days I think of Susan;

so many of her people lost

in the Holocaust. Every time I see her

I can’t believe it.

“You have to have some of my cosmos seeds!”

she says

over the phone. “The blooms

are glorious!”

Whenever we are together

we eat a lot.

If I am at her house

it is bacon, boiled potatoes,

coffee and broiled fish:

if she is at my house it is

oyster stew, clams, artichokes

and wine.

Our dream is for time in which

to walk miles together, a couple

of weeds stuck between our teeth,

comfy in our yogi pants

discoursing on Woolf

and child raising,

essay writing and gardening.

Susan makes me happy

because she exists.

Surely the earth can be saved for Susan.

These days I think of Sheila.

“‘Sheila’ is already a spiritual name,” she says.

And “Try meditation and jogging both.”

When we are together we talk

and talk

about The Spirit.

About What is Good and What is Not.

There was a time she applauded my anger,

now she feels it is something I should outgrow.

“It is not a useful emotion,” she says. “And besides,

if you think about it, there’s nothing worth

getting angry about.”

“I do not like anger,” I say.

“It raises my blood pressure.

I do not like violence. So much has been done to me.

But having embraced my complete being

I find anger

and the capacity for violence

within me.

Control

rather than eradication

is about the best

I feel I can do.

Besides, they intend to murder us,

you know.”

“Yes, I understand,” she says.

“But try meditation

and jogging
both
;

you’ll be surprised how calm you feel.”

I meditate, walk briskly, and take deep, deep breaths

for I know the importance of peace to the inner self.

When I talk to Sheila

I am forced to honor

my own ideals.

Surely the earth can be saved for Sheila.

These days I think of Gloria.

“The mere
sight
of an airplane puts me to sleep,”

she says.

Since she is not the pilot, this makes sense.

If this were a courageous country,

it would ask Gloria to lead it

since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart

and the National Leaders we’ve always had

are not.

When I listen to her talk about women’s rights

children’s rights

men’s rights

I think of the long line of Americans

who should have been president, but weren’t.

Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.

John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.

Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting

the youthful “Oppie” Oppenheimer. Imagine President

Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie

Wonder dealing with the “Truly Needy.”

Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums or

Sweet Honey in the Rock

dealing with Anything.

It is imagining to make us weep with frustration,

as we languish under real estate dealers, killers,

and bad actors.

Gloria makes me aware of how much we lose by denying,

exiling or repressing parts of ourselves

so that other parts,

grotesque and finally lethal

may creep into the light.

“Women must seize the sources of reproduction,” she says,

knowing her Marx and her Sanger too.

Surely the earth can be saved for Gloria.

These days I think of Jan,

who makes the most exquisite goblets

—and plates and casseroles.

Her warm hands steady on the cool

and lively clay,

her body attentive and sure, bending over the wheel.

I could watch her work for hours—

but there is never time. On one visit I see the bags

of clay. The next visit, I see pale and dusty molds,

odd pieces of hardening handles and lids. On another,

I see a stacked kiln. On another, magical objects of use

splashed with blue, streaked with black and red.

She sits quietly beside her creations

at countless fairs

watching without nostalgia

their journeys into the world.

She makes me consider how long

people have been making things. How wise

and thoughtful people often are.

A world without Jan would be like her house

when she is someplace else—gray, and full of furniture

I’ve never seen before.

Our dream is to sit on a ridge top for days

and reminisce

about the anti-nuke movement.

The time we were together

at a women’s music festival, and Diablo Canyon

called her.

The more comic aspects

of her arrest.

There is a way that she says “um
hum
” that means a lot

to me.

Surely the earth can be saved for Jan.

These days I think of Rebecca.

“Mama, are you a racist?” she asks.

And I realize I have badmouthed white people

once too often

in her presence.

Years ago I would have wondered

how white people have managed to live

all these years

with this question

from their children;

or, how did they train their children

not to ask?

Now I think how anti-racism

like civil rights or

affirmative action

helps white people too.

Even if they are killing us

we have to say, to try to believe,

it is the way they are raised,

not genetics,

that causes their bizarre, death-worshiping

behavior.

“If we were raised like white people,

to think we are superior to everything else

God made, we too would behave the way

they do,” say the elders.

And: “White folks could
be
people of color

if they’d only relax.”

Besides, my daughter declares

her own white father “Good,” and reminds me

it is often black men

who menace us on

the street.

Talking to Rebecca about race almost always

guarantees a headache.

But that is a small price

for the insight and clarity

she brings.

Surely the earth can be saved for Rebecca.

These days I think of John, Yoko and Sean Lennon.

Whenever I listen

to “Working-Class Hero,”

I laugh: because John says “fucking”

twice,

and it is always a surprise

though I know the record by heart.

I like to imagine

him putting Sean to bed

or exchanging his own hard,

ass-kicking boots

for sneakers.

I like to imagine Yoko

making this white boy deal with the word
NO

for the first time.

And the word
YES
forever.

I like to think of this brave

and honest

new age family

that dared to sing itself

even as anger, fear, sadness and death

squeezed its vocal cords.

Yoko knows the sounds of a woman coming

are finer by far than those of a B-52

on a bombing raid.

And a Kotex plastered across

a man’s forehead at dinner

can indicate serenity.

Hold on world

World hold on

It’s gonna be all right

You gonna see the light

(Ohh) when you’re one

Really one

You get things done

Like they never been done

So hold on.*

Surely the earth can be saved

by all the people

who insist

on love.

Surely the earth can be saved for us.