a poem by Aracelis Girmay for Minnie Riperton and Ms. Lucille.
*I had never heard of Ms. Girmay, or read her work, but I knew who Minnie Ripperton was (Maya Rudolph’s mom and a gifted pop singer who died much too young) and wondered who Ms. Lucille is, but – no answer on that yet. That said, I really liked this poem, and thus, share it with you!
This earth
of the dagger-toothed & hawks,
whose names we know,
taking bones for diamonds,
full of hair & snakes,
earth eating you, slowly,
below the sound
of gold horns.
This earth
with a jaw in its hand.
Brown-chariot, take-you-home
earth, chew you up
with the quiet work
of animals & trees, underworld
churning you through
the dark engines
of its appetite. This
earth we opened up
& buried you in, our
treasure, we miss
you, we miss you
with all life. This night
we think we will never close
again. We are pinned open
like a scientist’s moths
to leave you there dressed
in a box & earth around you.
This box earth, coffin
earth. Teeth earth eat
your chest through, laced
by the wrangle of beetles & worms
& ants who carry your bright pieces
like market cloth over their heads
to feed you to the queen
in the deeper corridors
of mysteries & dirt.
Trust the queen is you.
Trust the mud is you,
& the soft, silver afro of the dandelion.
Trust the grass-whistle might be
your speech, high as the whistle
of the whale. Trust
we’ll know your shape, whatever species
in you answers when we put our faces
to the dirt & call you by
your old & human name.
*Winner of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry, Aracelis Girmay is professor of poetry at Hampshire College, and, as of 2023, Stanford University. A native Californian, she is the author of three collections of poetry, Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007), and Kingdom Animalia, winner of the 2011 Isabella Gardner Award, and Black Maria, 2016. For more about Aracelis Girmay, visit her Wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aracelis_Girmay