Eve Remembering- Toni Morrison

1

I tore from a limb fruit that had lost its green.
My hands were warmed by the heat of an apple
Fire red and humming.
I bit sweet power to the core.
How can I say what it was like?
The taste! The taste undid my eyes
And led me far from the gardens planted for a child
To wildernesses deeper than any master’s call.

2

Now these cool hands guide what they once caressed;
Lips forget what they have kissed.
My eyes now pool their light
Better the summit to see.

3

I would do it all over again:
Be the harbor and set the sail,
Loose the breeze and harness the gale,
Cherish the harvest of what I have been.
Better the summit to scale.
Better the summit to be.

Saturday Class: Janie Crawford is Grown- Kelly Norman Ellis

In class today,
We mused on Janie and Tea Cake
And how love saves and wounds.

And I said,
Who is Janie’s true love?
And they said,

Tea Cake.
And I said
Are you sure?

And Eboni said,
She love herself like she ’posed to.
She wanted to be like the bee and the flower

But her granny wouldn’t let her.
And we all nodded.
Logan treated her like a mule

And Joe like a doll baby
And Tea Cake was her
Bae. But in the end

She come back home.
And I said
Is this the end of the story?

And Chynna said,
Naw, she ain’t but forty’
It’s just the beginning

Janie got money, and a house
And she ain’t studyin’ nothin’.

Sport – Langston Hughes

Life
For him
Must be
The shivering of
A great drum
Beaten with swift sticks
Then at the closing hour
The lights go out
And there is no music at all
And death becomes
An empty cabaret
And eternity an unblown saxophone
And yesterday
A glass of gin
Drunk long
Ago

Stars in Alabama – Jessie Redmon Fauset

In Alabama
Stars hang down so low,
So low, they purge the soul
With their infinity.
Beneath their holy glance
Essential good
Rises to mingle with them
In that skiey sea.

At noon
Within the sandy cotton-field
Beyond the clay, red road
Bordered with green,
A Negro lad and lass
Cling hand in hand,
And passion, hot-eyed, hot-lipped,
Lurks unseen.

But in the evening
When the skies lean down,
He’s but a wistful boy,
A saintly maiden she,
For Alabama stars
Hang down so low,
So low, they purge the soul
With their infinity.