Black earth darkness. Daffodils in greens.
The big house on the hill shrouded by trees.
You at the window watching for my advance.
You always waiting alone to let me home.
A wound of grief, dark as the night,
swells in her hands like sycamore leaves.
Since May, I’ve been sharing my writing on Medium. This is a platform I’ve tired a number of times before but for some reason the habit just didn’t stick. I now know this probably had something to do with having nothing really to say. But now I do.
I’ve been contributing to the Binderful Blog, which a small online community of women, started a few years ago, which offers classes to support women questioning their lives. Maybe shaking up the status quo from the kitchen table outwards. I’m due to create a class with Binderful but in the meantime, I’ve been writing on Medium for them.
If you’re interested in checking out what I’ve shared so far then click below to read the articles.
Pandemic Food Ways: A Little Sweet Treat
Waiting To Be Allowed In
The streets are on fire.
Smoke coats our tongues
like iron in our blood.
We walk for our rights
as weedy paths like barbed
wire lacerate our ankles.
God is in our shouts.
Demands for justice pour
forth smelling of lilies.
Winds of hope on the horizon
are felt like cherry blossom,
delicate and beautiful
but not short lived.
Starting this week over on my Patreon Page, I’ll be sharing my back catalogue of poetry. Call is an archive, The Tending Black Archive. This is an exclusive resource made available to my supporters over there.
Head on over if you’re interested in joining the club.
This month was a hard month to concentrate on any longer reads. My reading was bitty and more about current affairs with The Guardian newspaper getting many hits. Other featured websites were The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Orion and The New York Times.
The readings was what it was, what it needed to be to get me through each moment, each day.
The one book I read, while I started many, was A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson. A poetry collection exploring the Grenfell disaster intimately which went on to win the T S Eliot Prize in 2019.
To cool down after a hot shower, I sit with my flesh exposed.
From the open window, a cool Spring breeze caresses my skin.
I feel delight in the simple pleasure of air, of space, of me.
Seagulls squawk and voices mumble across yards. Cars roam.
Hanging baskets of white and pink blooms sway.
I seat and soak it in, swelling from the inside out with love.
In this moment, I am beautiful. I am all I need. I am enough.
Ted Blaine, musician
After Gabrielle Calvocoressi
I journey back sometimes
and remember when I was riding
up front in that hot metal can.
I could see her in the rear mirror,
patting down here hair
and fixing her lipstick.
I should have done things
differently, little things,
like carried her bags
into the service elevator.
Let her know that I didn’t
think it was right, the way
they treated them Negroes.
One time, I heard her humming
while watching the world whizz by.
It was awful sweet the way
she could drift off into the music.
My mama was the same when she
had breath in her body. Sometimes
I dream of singing. Mostly
it’s that Billie’s comes back.
We’re traveling in the hot tin bus
but we’re upfront together
and she’s telling me
a thing or two about improvising
as the trumpet runs off
dancing with the piano.
water. sea. ocean.
the black body. from Mother stolen.
learning to swim. for freedom.
foam. air. white.
the black body. walk back home.
Learning to die. for freedom.
