Quotes from Lucille Clifton

and adam rose fearful in the garden without words for the grass his fingers plucked without a tongue to name the taste shimmering in his mouth did they draw blood the blades did it become his early lunge toward language did his astonishment surround him did he shudder did he whisper eve

Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing. Lucille Clifton

when you lie awake in the evenings counting your birthdays turn the blood that clots on your tongue into poems. poems. from "The Message of Thelma Sayles

children when they ask you why is your mama so funny say she is a poet she don't have no sense

mama mama if we are nothing why should we spare the neighborhood mama mama who will be next and why should we save the pictures

you have your own story you know about the fears the tears the scar of disbelief you know that the saddest lies are the ones we tell ourselves you know how dangerous it is to be born with breasts you know how dangerous it is to wear dark skin

Maybe I should have wanted less. Maybe I should have ignored the bowl in me burning to be filled. Maybe I should have wanted less.

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, "blessing the boats," Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000 . (BOA Editions Ltd. April 1, 2000)

is it treason to remember what we have done to deserve such villainy nothing we reassure ourselves nothing

I 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." #LucilleClifton

BREAKLIGHT Light keeps on breaking. i keep knowing the language of other nations. i keep hearing tree talk water words and i keep knowing what they mean. and light just keeps on breaking… Collected in: Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature by Lorraine Anderson

and we hang onto our no place happy to be alive and in the inner city or like we call it home

thunder and lightning and our world is another place no day will ever be the same no blood untouched

and God has blessed America to learn that noone is exempt the world is one all fear is one all life all death all one

and this is not the time I think to ask who is allowed to be american america all of us gathered under one flag praying together safely warmed by the single love of the many tongued God

the st. marys river flows as if nothing has happened i watch it with my coffee afraid and sad as are we all so many ones to hate and i cursed with long memory cursed with the desire to understand have never been good at hating

and i am consumed with love for all of it the everydayness of bravery of hate of fear of tragedy of death and birth and hope

i bear witness to no thing more human than hate i bear witness to no thing more human than love

I am accused of tending to the past as if I made it, as if I sculpted it with my own hands. i did not, this past was waiting for me when I came,

Smoke was hanging over Buffalo like judgment.

Things don't fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect in thin ways that last and last and lives become generations made out of pictures and words just kept.

His life had been full of days and his days had been full of life.

And I could tell you about things we been through, some awful ones, some wonderful, but I know that the things that make us are more than that, our lives are more than the days in them, our lives are our line and we go on. I type that and I swear I can see Ca'line standing in the green of Virginia, in the green of Afrika, and I swear she makes no sound but she nods her head and smiles.

Children when they ask you why your mama so funny say she is a poet she don't have no sense