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Friday, June 26, 2009
Natural Star - For Michael Jackson
© 1991 by Alice Walker
I am in mourning
For your face
The one I used to love
To see
Leaping, glowing
Upon the
The stage
The mike
Eager...
Thrusting
In your
Fist.
I am in mourning
For your face
The shining eyes
The happy teeth
The look that said
I am the world
And aren't you
Glad
Not to mention
Deeply
In luck.
I am in mourning
For
The sweet brown innocence
Of your skin
Your perfect nose
The shy smile
That lit you
Like a light.
I am in mourning
For a face
The Universe
In its goodness
Makes but once
Each
Thousand
Years
and smiles
And sends it out
To spread great joy
Itself well pleased.
I am in mourning
For your beloved face
So thoroughly
And undeservedly
Released.
Oh, my pretty little
Brother. Genius. Child.
Sing to us. Dance.
Rest in peace.
***
From Collected Poems (Her Blue Body Everything We Know) 1965-1990 by Alice Walker
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6 comments:
Thank you for posting this. I have been wanting an easy link to refer people to it after someone on Facebook talked about it, and I looked it up yesterday.
What a beautiful, heart-rending, powerful poem.
I was stunned by the last line, though, when I read it the first time somewhere else ... knowing the poem was written in 1991. It was almost a second shock to my system. Yet it was so right, even then.
Michael Jackson was a beautiful, beautiful man just the way he was born -- one of the most gorgeous men I have ever seen. I will remember him that way.
I heard Ms. Walker read this poem at Indiana U. in 1991. When she read the first 2 lines the audience laughed nervously and she stopped. This is not a funny poem, she said (not an exact quote). It moved me then and even more so now.
goddess what a beautiful poem!
This moved me greatly. it expresses the dismay many of us feel about the destruction of his face; at his obvious loathing he seemed to feel for his looks. He was...so beautiful. It's a tragedy he didn't seem to know this, to see this. RIP Michael.
Today, I dug through a mountain of my books looking for Alice Walker's HER BLUE BODY EVERYTNG WE KNOW: EARTHLING POEMS 1965-1990 COMPLETE to find this poem.
i have read this poem before but, as i am wont to do, forgot what i already knew, what you long ago told me. thank you for the reminder. thank you also for this, your living book. you look beautiful.
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