Jasmine

Jasmine

May It Be Said of Me

© 2009 by Alice Walker

May it be said of me

That when I saw

Your mud hut

I remembered

My shack.

That when I tasted your

Pebble filled beans

I recalled

My salt pork.

That when I saw

Your twisted
Limbs

I embraced

My wounded

Sight.

That when you

Rose from
 your knees

And stood

Like women

And 
men

Of this Earth-

As promised
 to us

As to anyone:

Without regrets

Of
 any kind

I joined 
you-

Singing.

***

 

And Do you See What They Have Bought With It?

@2009 by Alice Walker

You have bought
Foolish hats
From madmen
In Paris
You have bought
Shoes
You never
Intend to wear
You have
Bought
Cars for
Each day
Of
The week.

You ride
Faster than
Our donkeys
Can
Think;
Splashed with
The perfume
of our mothers’
Tears.

On
Television
You appear
In all your
Innocence

Wearing the spectacles
Whose frames
Our turtles
Unwillingly
Donated to you
With their
Shells

You speak
About our danger
To you

Our anger
And envy
And greed.

You are genuinely surprised to see us
Not only standing
But even more
Mysteriously
Armed, absolutely,
With the graceful
Power
Of speech.

But we were busy
In those shacks
&
Mud huts
Before dark;
Before the mosquitoes
Drove us
From our books.
We know
What you take
From us
And what
Useless things
-never love or peace or happiness –
You buy
With it.
***

From: The world Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness Into Flowers (a work in progress) ©2011 by Alice Walker

Madness evolving into Flowers:

Gasland, a documentary about the practice of ” fracking” for natural gas by Josh Fox

Tapped, a documentary about bottled water

Cutting For Stone, a novel by Abraham Verghese

The Egyptian people’s uprising

Mohamed Bouazizi and the Jasmine revolution