for audre lorde (22)

acknowledged but not judged

for audre lorde

the wild trees have bought me
and will sell you a wind
in the forest of falsehoods
where your search must not end
from “song”

u did in fact make yr meaning known, gamba adisa,
& caused the feminist hive to swarm. winsome warrior
woman poet, robust & screaming, aching to tell yr story,
aching to force out thru yr pores the legends of the myself,
the black being spoken from the inside, the lesbian, godtouched
& marginalized, coming out & ready to roughly
love -- not unlike the fabled socratic gadfly but more akin to
a brightly colored hummingbird with a deeply forked tail
who proboscis-probed a furious femininist stigma & found
nestled like grains of pollen among the flowers, racism,
sexism & homophobia. beware the binary, u told yr sisters,
beware the mandatory greater & lesser, or women will
never be free!

my sweet sister rei domini, severed daughter of seboulisa,
u wrapped me up warm inside yr coiled poetic cloth, made
me like sango yr brother. of all the female oracles of yr time,
i heard u best; heard u loudest in yr celebrated mornings of
wish; in yr evening schools of longing. u had a way of
choosing & using words to denote essentials that have no
names in language. u helped me overcome the poverty of
my own heartspeak; helped me find peace where no peace is.
u let me mount yr hummingbird spirit & ride as u fed on
nectar; as u joyeously pollinated tribal & tribadist judgment.
u bade me feel my fire, sing the morning above the audible
drone of yr rapidly moving wings & i gave to the farewell
winds my full-throated song.

©Joseph McNair