Thursday, March 27, 2014

I can only be me



We have so many days and so little time.

Embrace the moment and remember where you came from.

Today is a new day.

Let go, let it flow, live the moment and be thankful for the new sun.

“I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that I catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what I said to myself about myself when I was sixteen and twenty-six and thirty-six but I am running into a new year and I beg what i love and I leave to forgive me.”
― Lucille Clifton
“the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves”
― Lucille Clifton
 
“may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back”
― Lucille Clifton

“won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
― Lucille Clifton
 

“they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering mine”
― Lucille Clifton

“listen,
you a wonder.
you a city of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.

listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.

listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you

he got his hands on
some
damn
body!”
― Lucille Clifton
 

“You might as well answer the door, my child,
the truth is furiously knocking.”
― Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

“the lost women

I need to know their names
those women I would have walked with,
jauntily the way men go in groups
swinging their arms, and the ones
those sweating women whom I would have joined
After a hard game to chew the fat
what would we have called each other laughing
joking into our beer? where are my gangs,
my teams, my mislaid sisters?
all the women who could have known me,
where in the world are their names?

― Lucille Clifton
 

“What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.”
― Lucille Clifton

“wishes for sons
by Lucille Clifton


i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn't believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.


― Lucille Clifton
 

“don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”
― Lucille Clifton

“blessing the boats
(at saint mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back
may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that”
― Lucille Clifton

17 comments:

  1. These poems are wonderful! I really liked the one about the leaves and letting go. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful! I could stare at those mountains forever!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had a conversation with a friend today about living for today and not the past. This post was on par with that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the poems and the beautiful photos together. So much beauty!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the title of the post as well as the poetry. It can be so hard to live as ourselves and not try to be what we think others want us to be (or what we THINK) they want us to be.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The pictures are breath taking! Love them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Such a breathtaking view and what a beautiful church!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. So many great quotes. I love the beautiful pictures too.

    Michelle F.

    ReplyDelete
  9. what beautiful pictures! They are stunning!

    ReplyDelete
  10. The views in your town are stunning. It is true that we can choose what we will answer to. We can choose what we will become.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is a very well put together group of poems. And I love the pictures, as always!

    ReplyDelete
  12. That's beautiful poetry. I am constantly trying to be myself but it seems I am not allowed anymore as I became a mother.

    ReplyDelete
  13. These are such beautiful poems, and the photos are to die for!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Those photos are stunning! I really love the mountains and the sky and how beautiful they look!

    ReplyDelete
  15. What a beautiful post with beautfiul pictures. I loved the quotes as well.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Beautiful post! Thank you for reminding me about what matters :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. So beautiful, I'm not sure if I love the photos more or the poems.

    ReplyDelete