IF I DIE

I remember watching my grandfather bury my grandmother’s ashes on our family’s farm twenty-five years ago. It was November, upstate New York, a cold winter’s evening. We…all walked behind my grandfather through the purple evening shadows across the familiar meadows, out to the sandy point by the river’s bend where he had decided to bury his wife’s remains. He carried a lantern in one hand and a shovel over his shoulder. The ground was covered with snow and the digging was hard work – even for such a small container as this urn, even for such a robust man as Grandpa Stanley. But he hung the lantern on a naked tree limb and steadily dug that hold – and then it was over. And that’s how it goes. You have somebody for a little while, and then that person is gone.
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert


Honey, I realized that if I die first you’ll want to do a slide show. I’ll have to get together some childhood photos. You know which song to use, the one that makes me cry. Be sure to send the slide to my East Coast friends. I don’t want to be laid out for the viewing, okay? Close the box, please. I would appreciate some privacy. And you know me. Don’t even look at the first-class caskets. No sense in burying your money with your wife. I insist on traveling Economy. Oh gosh, the eulogy. Oh gosh, your grammar. Uh…why don’t we give the words over to our pastor? Or…or Jon? You’ll be busy with the preparations anyway. Let me leave you with at least this token of peace: you have my blessing to remarry. Someone who will love you better than I did and make me look bad. I gotta let go my ego sometime – but ONLY if she is good to Tennyson and will mind my food blog for his meals. Gee, I hope she’s not A.D.D. I would approve if she has kids, if he can get instant siblings out of the deal. ‘S me, bargain-hunting through the end.
I don’t want you to cry too much. I mean that. You live while you can. But remember to hold our son when he spills those tears. Tell him Umma is happier than she’s ever been, that she’s finally had the reunion that burst her heart with joy. And that she asked the Lord for the dog-free section, the food’s organic, and there are no dishes. You always thought I was marketable, saw my name in literary lights. And here I probably leave you with no royalties or anything for all the writing you freed me up for. You’re right. You should’ve taken out the life insurance on me. But you’ll always have A Holistic Journey, one that never ends. I hope your wife’s not the jealous type. Just please make sure Tennyson reads this blog, my gift to him. Tell him the one thing I ask of him, the one thing I ask to redeem all my work with him, is the drumming. It would please me so much for him to get a college scholarship. I never planned to burden the boy, but what can he expect? Korean Mom. A little pressure doesn’t hurt. Save my rings for his wife.
Husband’s email yesterday: “Remember, if you die, I’m vaccinating him, putting him in public school, feeding him fast food, and putting him to bed without washing his hands after the bathroom.”
Dear God,
Tennyson’s on autopilot with the hand-washing but I still REFUSE to see you in the next ten years.
Love,
Bull-headed in California, aka Holistic Wayfarer

Notes For a Speech

African blues
does not know me. Their steps, in sands
of their own
land. A country
in black & white, newspapers
blown down pavements
of the world. Does
not feel
what I am.
Strength
in the dream, an oblique
suckling of nerve, the wind
throws up sand, eyes
are something locked in
hate, of hate, of hate, to
walk abroad, they conduct
their deaths apart
from my own. Those
heads, I call
my "people."
(And who are they. People. To concern
myself, ugly man. Who
you, to concern
the white flat stomachs
of maidens, inside houses
dying. Black. Peeled moon
light on my fingers
move under
her clothes. Where
is her husband. Black
words throw up sand
to eyes, fingers of
their private dead. Whose
soul, eyes, in sand. My color
is not theirs. Lighter, white man
talk. They shy away. My own
dead souls, my, so called
people. Africa
is a foreign place. You are
as any other sad man here
american.

Amiri Baraka

In Memory of Radio - Amiri Baraka

Who has ever stopped to think of the divinity of Lamont Cranston?
(Only jack Kerouac, that I know of: & me.
The rest of you probably had on WCBS and Kate Smith,
Or something equally unattractive.)
What can I say?
It is better to haved loved and lost
Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?
Am I a sage or something?
Mandrake's hypnotic gesture of the week?
(Remember, I do not have the healing powers of Oral Roberts...
I cannot, like F. J. Sheen, tell you how to get saved & rich!
I cannot even order you to the gaschamber satori like Hitler or Goddy Knight)
& love is an evil word.
Turn it backwards/see, see what I mean?
An evol word. & besides
who understands it?
I certainly wouldn't like to go out on that kind of limb.
Saturday mornings we listened to the Red Lantern & his undersea folk.
At 11, Let's Pretend
& we did
& I, the poet, still do. Thank God!
What was it he used to say (after the transformation when he was safe
& invisible & the unbelievers couldn't throw stones?) "Heh, heh, heh.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."
O, yes he does
O, yes he does
An evil word it is,
This Love.

AMIRI BARAKA

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