“And Don’t Think I Won’t Be Waiting”: Love poems by Audre Lorde
Posted: June 18, 2013 Filed under: Audre Lorde, English Comments Off on “And Don’t Think I Won’t Be Waiting”: Love poems by Audre Lorde
ZP_Solar Abstract_© photographer Wilda Gerideau-Squires
Audre Lorde (1934 – 1992)
“Pirouette”
.
I saw
your hands on my lips like blind needles
blunted
from sewing up stone
and
where are you from
you said
your hands reading over my lips for
some road through uncertain night
for your feet to examine home
where are you from
you said
your hands
on my lips like thunder
promising rain
.
a land where all lovers are mute.
.
And
why are you weeping
you said
your hands in my doorway like rainbows
following rain
why are you weeping?
.
I am come home.
.
(1968, revised 1976)
. . .
“Bridge through My Window”
.
In curve scooped out and necklaced with light
burst pearls stream down my out-stretched arms to earth.
Oh bridge my sister bless me before I sleep
the wild air is lengthening
and I am tried beyond strength or bearing
over water.
.
Love, we are both shorelines
a left country
where time suffices
and the right land
where pearls roll into earth and spring up day.
joined, our bodies have passage into one
without merging
as this slim necklace is anchored into night.
.
And while the we conspires
to make secret its two eyes
we search the other shore
for some crossing home.
.
(1968, revised 1976)
. . .
“Conversations in Crisis”
.
I speak to you as a friend speaks
or a true lover
not out of friendship nor love
but for a clear meeting
of self upon self
in sight of our hearth
but without fire.
.
I cherish your words that ring
like late summer thunders
to sing without octave
and fade, having spoken the season.
But I hear the false heat of this voice
as it dries up the sides of your words
coaxing melodies from your tongue
and this curled music is treason.
.
Must I die in your fever –
or, as the flames wax, take cover
in your heart’s culverts
crouched like a stranger
under the scorched leaves of your other burnt loves
until the storm passes over?
.
(1970, revised 1976)
. . .
“Recreation”
.
Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
paper and pen
neither care nor profit
whether we write or not
but as your body moves
under my hands
charged and waiting
we cut the leash
you create me against your thighs
hilly with images
moving through our word countries
my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me.
.
Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love you flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me.
.
(1978)
. . .
“And Don’t Think I Won’t Be Waiting”
.
I am supposed to say
it doesn’t matter look me up some
time when you’re in my neighbourhood
needing
a drink or some books good talk
a quick dip before lunch –
but I never was one
for losing
what I couldn’t afford
from the beginning
your richness made my heart
burn like a roman candle.
.
Now I don’t mind
your hand on my face like fire
like a slap
turned inside out
quick as a caress
but I’m warning you
this time
you will not slip away
under a covering cloud
of my tears.
.
(1974)
. . . . .
Zócalo Poets 