THE LOST BABY POEM
(by Lucille Clifton)
the time i dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city
and run one with the sewage to the sea
what did i know about waters rushing back
what did i know about drowning
or being drowned
you would have been born into winter
in the year of the disconnected gas
and no car we would have made the thin
walk over genesee hill into the canada wind
to watch you slip like ice into strangers' hands
you would have fallen naked as snow into winter
if you were here i could tell you these
and some other things
if i am ever less than a mountain
for your definite brothers and sisters
let the rivers pour over my head
let the sea take me for a spiller
of seas let black men call me stranger
always for your never named sake
© Lucille Clifton
6 voices:
This is one of my all-time favorite poems and poets. Lucille Clifton has always been a hero of mine.
Thank you!
I also like that poem of hers about her hips.
Yes, "Homage to My Hips" -- there are just to many great poems to name.
I don't really have any regrets in life, but not studying with Lucille Clifton will always stick out for me. I've met her many times but never been in a class with her. She's amazing.
what a deep personal exorcism... having made a difficult decision that will remain with you for the course of your lifetime,, is often like tending a wound that never really heals...
Her poems strike a deep cord with me, although I'm just now discovering Lucille Clifton's work.
The hole at the end of this poem reflects the life that will always be there and not there for the narrator, the non name sake, the emptiness that doesn't go away. A complicated poem, told in elegant language.
Thanks for sharing this one!
Paisley,
Deep is a good word for this poem. And the gaps at the end are there for a reason, yes.
Christina,
I haven't known her stuff for a long time, falling by accident across an audio file of her Hommage To My Hips.
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