#Kamilah Aisha Moon

[violettesiren]

I.

Their noises make you think they are crying or suffering. They have learned to bow. Even the fawns bow, centuries of bowing in their blood.

They are not considered wild. Precious pests litter parks with dung, take over the roads. Sweet nuisance worth saving, thinning these herds is a last resort—once a capital offense to spill their endangered blood.

They are so used to humans, it is scary.

II.

Our cries are heard as noise, our suffering considered natural. Native citizens, we are not free to roam or deemed sacred like Japanese bowing deer protected as messengers of the gods.

Nara, Japan is known for its temples, shrines to peace. America is known for its churches, segregated Sundays.

This is not Nara, Japan. Hunted, it is always open season. The sight of dark skin brings out the wild in certain human breeds. Bowing, hands up or any other gesture of surrender makes no difference.

They slay our young & leave them in the streets, expect us to walk away & wonder, after centuries why we are not used to this—

grieving masses treated like waste, filthy herds thinned at will.

III.

To be clear, this is America & we are not deer We are not deer We are not dear here

The Emperor’s Deer by Kamilah Aisha Moon

[litbowl]

Image via Poetry Foundation. Poem originally published in Kamilah Aisha Moon's book, She Has a Name. (Four Way Books).

[meidui]

Margartia Karapanou, Rien ne va plus (translated by Karen Emmerich) • Jackson Holbert, Moth after Chessy Normile • LL, Venus | Unsent letter • Kamilah Aisha Moon, 1st Vote • Chana Bloch, THE RULE OF GRAMMAR • Fleurie, Love and War • Warsan Shire • Margaret Schnabel, Untitled

[april-is]

April 25, 2024: from Moon for Aisha, Aracelis Girmay

from Moon for Aisha Aracelis Girmay

— for Kamilah Aisha Moon, with a line after Cornelius Eady’s ''Gratitude''

Dear Aisha, I mean to be writing you a birthday letter, though it’s not September, the winter already nearing, the bareness of trees, their weightlessness, their gestures — grace or grief. The windows of buildings all shining early, lit with light, & I am only ten & riding all of my horses home, still sisterless, wanting sisters.

You do not know me yet. In fact, we are years away from that life. But I am thankful for some inexplicable thing, let’s call it “freedom,” or “night,” the terror & glee of being outside late, after dark, my mother’s voice shouting for me beneath stars which, I learned in school, are suddenly not so different from the small salt of fathers, & gratitude for that, & for the red house of your mother’s blood, & then, you, all nearly grown, all long-legged laughter, already knowing all the songs & all the dances, not my friend, yet, but, somehow — Out There.

In one version of our lives, it is November. Through a window I see one of our elders is a black eye of a woman, is a thinker, & magnificent. [...] It is always her birthday. She has always lived to tell a part of the story of the world, what happened here.

If not a moon, what can we bring this woman who walks ahead? For whom you were named, & whose name has been added to by you whose language crowns the dark field of what has been hushed, of what is beautiful & black, & blue.

--

Read the full poem here.

Written to the author's friend, poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who died in 2021. Read one of her essays: It's Not The Load That Breaks You Down; It's The Way You Carry It.

More on friendship: + Ode to Friendship, Noor Hindi + from how many of us have them?, Danez Smith

Today in:

2023: Still Life with Nursing Bra, Keetje Kuipers 2022: A Small-Sized Mystery, Jane Hirshfield 2021: Prayer for My Unborn Niece or Nephew, Ross Gay 2020: Vigil, Phillis Levin 2019: Nights in the Neighborhood, Linda Gregg 2018: I Dreamed Again, Anne Michaels 2017: wishes for sons, Lucille Clifton 2016: Told You So, Keetje Kuipers 2015: Accident, Mass. Ave., Jill McDonough 2014: This Hour and What Is Dead, Li-Young Lee 2013: To Myself, Franz Wright 2012: Manet’s Olympia, Margaret Atwood 2011: Three Rivers, Alpay Ulku 2010: Ode to Hangover, Dean Young 2009: We become new, Marge Piercy 2008: The Only Animal, Franz Wright 2007: Dream Song 385, John Berryman 2006: The Quiet World, Jeffrey McDaniel 2005: Man and Wife, Robert Lowell

[ztxtz]

To a Dear Friend Mothering Misery Kamilah Aisha Moon

Every time your grief cries, you pick it up, cradle it like a newborn. But your pain isn't precious, not your life-long responsibility. For each doting moment,

your soul refuses to sing for days -- and the world needs your music too much.

Please leave it be; no more milk. Let it cry for nights on end unattended. Let it forget how your heartbeat sounds, the warmth of your skin. Stop making it soup when it coughs, setting a place for it at the table or buying it new clothes. Convert its old room into a sanctuary for things you adore. Let your ache become self-sufficient and grow apart from you,

walk out the door and forget to call home.

to a dear friend mothering misery by kamilah aisha moon

[seekingstars]

Love - Kamilah Aisha Moon

[lifeinpoetry]

Candlelight for two is a date; I faintly remember those. Candlelight alone is a séance— forgive me, my dearly departed for crying out so often, for still needing you so damn much.

— Kamilah Aisha Moon, from “Storm,” Together in a Sudden Strangeness, ed. Alice Quinn

[wintryblight]

Hi! First of all, thank you so much for this blog! I can't imagine all the work involved in finding all these poems. You are a sweetheart!

I would like to ask if you can recommend poems about space, stars or galaxies. Anything space related will do!

Again, thank you so much for this blog. Hope everything is ok with you and your family. Don't forget to take care of yourself!

hi! thank you so much for your kind words. you are a sweetheart as well & thank you so much for supporting my project. enjoy reading & take care! here is a previous compilation i made on the moon as well that i think you’d love.

Keith S. Wilson, “Heliocentric” | Who could love you / like this? Who else will sew you in the stars?

Ada Limón, “Dead Stars” | We keep forgetting about Antlia, Centaurus, / Draco, Lacerta, Hydra, Lyra, Lynx. / But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too

Tracy K. Smith, “My God, It’s Full of Stars” | Maybe the dead know, their eyes widening at last, / Seeing the high beams of a million galaxies flick on / At twilight.

Natalie Diaz, “How the Milky Way Was Made” | You see them now— / god-large, gold-green sides, / moon-white belly and breast— / making their great speeded way across the darkest hours, / rippling the sapphired sky-water into a galaxy road.

Dorianne Laux, “Third Rock from the Sun” | when the leaves were turning colors in their dying / and we didn’t know why, or that they would return, / bud and green. One of a billion / small miracles.

Kamilah Aisha Moon, “Exploded Stars” | we remember / the most massive / flares among us, / detonate inside / each other to hold / tiny supernovae / in our arms

[bibliomancyoracle]

“Want” is no longer your enemy.

*

from “IRONY” by KAMILAH AISHA MOON

[lunchboxpoems]

THE EMPEROR’S DEER

I. Their noises make you think they are crying or suffering. They have learned to bow. Even the fawns bow, centuries of bowing in their blood. They are not considered wild. Precious pests litter parks with dung, take over the roads. Sweet nuisance worth saving, thinning these herds is a last resort — once a capital offense to spill their endangered blood. They are so used to humans, it is scary. II. Our cries are heard as noise, our suffering considered natural. Native citizens, we are not free to roam or deemed sacred like Japanese bowing deer protected as messengers of the gods. Nara, Japan is known for its temples, shrines to peace. America is known for its churches, segregated Sundays. This is not Nara, Japan. Hunted, it is always open season. The sight of dark skin brings out the wild in certain human breeds. Bowing, hands up or any other gesture of surrender makes no difference. They slay our young & leave them in the streets, expect us to walk away & wonder, after centuries why we are not used to this — grieving masses treated like waste, filthy herds thinned at will. III. To be clear, this is America & we are not deer We are not deer We are not dear here

KAMILAH AISHA MOON

[violettesiren]

— for Kamilah Aisha Moon, with a line after Cornelius Eady’s ''Gratitude''

Dear Aisha, I mean to be writing you a birthday letter, though it’s not September, the winter already nearing, the bareness of trees, their weightlessness, their gestures — grace or grief. The windows of buildings all shining early, lit with light, & I am only ten & riding all of my horses home, still sisterless, wanting sisters.

You do not know me yet. In fact, we are years away from that life. But I am thankful for some inexplicable thing, let’s call it “freedom,” or “night,” the terror & glee of being outside late, after dark, my mother’s voice shouting for me beneath stars which, I learned in school, are suddenly not so different from the small salt of fathers, & gratitude for that, & for the red house of your mother’s blood, & then, you, all nearly grown, all long-legged laughter, already knowing all the songs & all the dances, not my friend, yet, but, somehow — Out There.

In one version of our lives, it is November. Through a window I see one of our elders is a black eye of a woman, is a thinker, & magnificent. At a desk, she builds her house with her hands, with paper, wood & clay, the years of light & the years of dark. She sees oblivion & turns, crowns her head, instead, with flowers, the upper & the lower worlds. Lightning streaks the black mind of her hair, she leaves it there, then cleans the house with laughter, dances broadly in each room, a pirouette, a wop. Out of doors, she dares to wear the house key from a silver hoop recalling the moon, the gleaming syllable: of a planet dark with fires & time. She is glorious, isn’t she? It is always her birthday. She has always lived to tell a part of the story of the world, what happened here.

If not a moon, what can we bring this woman who walks ahead? For whom you were named, & whose name has been added to by you whose language crowns the dark field of what has been hushed, of what is beautiful & black, & blue.

Moon for Aisha by Aracelis Girmay

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

I have all of these lily plants but not you, nor peace.

How they ease my breathing yet trouble my mind, symbols of your soaring too high to see or reach, beauty clanging like bells out of tune, time’s up.         Leaves

so shiny & perfect they look fake, but a few brown ones barely clinging & curled in on themselves— less supple, less everything like me, let me know they are real.

They are real. Too real. Lord knows you were the most real one can ever be & now you are really gone!

Your need is over, but your giving goes on & on.     Heaven is shedding desire’s heavy robes, pure devotion to love’s bare essence.    You, flowered & shiny in what’s left of my heart, teaching me to rally. No matter how it may appear, I’m not rootless.

Today & tomorrow & the day after that, you remain evergreen & ours somewhere not here, as my tears land in potted soil exiled from its mother, Earth, like me.

Disbelief ~ Kamilah Aisha Moon

[elizabethanism]

They are left to imagine

what her life might have been.

We are left to imagine the day

it won't require imagination

to care about all of the others.

—Kamilah Aisha Moon

[inhernature]

Taking Out the Trash

Someone else used to do this before.

Someone responsible,

someone who loved me enough

to protect me from my own filth

piling up.

 But I’m over 40 now & live alone,

& if I don’t remember it's Thursday

& rise with the cardinals & bluejays

calling up the sun, I’m stuck

with what’s left rotting

for another week.

 I swing my legs like anchors over the side

of the bed & use the wall for leverage

to stand, shuffle to the bathroom.

In summer, I slide into a pair of shorts & flip flops,

wandering room to room to collect

what no longer serves me.

 I shimmy the large kitchen bag from

the steel canister, careful not to spill

what’s inside or rip it somehow

& gross myself out.

Sometimes I double bag for insurance,

tying loose ends together,

cinching it tightly for the journey.

 Still combing through webs of dreams,

of spiders’ handiwork glistening above

the wheeled container on the back patio,

I drag my refuse down the driveway

past the chrysanthemums & azaleas,

the huge Magnolia tree shading the living room

from Georgia’s heat, flattening hordes

of unsuspecting ants in my path to park it

next to the mailbox for merciful elves

to take off my hands.

 It is not lost on me that one day

someone responsible,

someone who loves me enough

will dispose of this worn, wrinkled

container after my spirit soars on.

 I don’t wait to say thank you

to those doing this grueling, necessary work.

But I do stand in the young, faintly lit air

for a long moment to inhale deeply,

& like clockwork when he strides by,

watch the jogger’s strong, wet back

fade over the slight rise of the road.

[protectblackchildren]

Contrary to popular conception, the region's not all white—and "Affrilachia" has a long literary tradition

[kpki]

Homecoming for Alice Walker in Eatonton, GA

Alice Walker, the first African-American female writer to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature, came home to Eatonton, Georgia on Saturday, July 13 to a public celebration of her 75th birthday year.

I joyfully attended the sold-out Alice Walker 75, an event of welcome, inclusion, and openness. The kind of day where you sit with strangers and make new friends, where you alternately beam with joy and cry with the type of happiness that comes with the feeling that, here, in Alice Walker’s calm presence, all is right in this little corner of the world.

Walker was the eighth child of sharecroppers born and raised in Eatonton, a sleepy, segregated middle Georgia town that she left after being awarded a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta. As Valedictorian and Homecoming Queen at the all-black Butler-Baker High School, she was well aware of class divisions and racism in her native Georgia, which inspired the activist spirit in her soul.

Despite loving relationships with her family and friends, Walker consciously put Eatonton in her rearview mirror. Her participation in Alice Walker 75 marked her first official connection to the town since 1986 when Eatonton hosted a premiere of the film The Color Purple (based on her award-winning book by the same name).

Alice Walker 75

Walker and Valerie Boyd during their conversation

The Saturday, July 13, 2019 celebration was a first-class affair organized by both locals and several Atlantans, including co-chairs Valerie Boyd, UGA journalism professor and author of Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, and Lou Benjamin, co-founder of the Briar Patch Arts Council of Eatonton. It was presented by the Georgia Writers Museum and many sponsors.

My View

Being a busy weekend in the middle of summer, none of my friends were available to join me. So, I bought myself the full-day ticket and secretly cherished an opportunity to take it all in without any distractions.

As soon as I drove into the quiet downtown, the sight of street banners welcoming Walker and her guests immediately brought tears to my eyes. How far we’ve come, I thought, from my early career days with Georgia Tourism promoting the Uncle Remus Museum and Rock Eagle. While those are still beloved, it feels like the town has come full circle toward its authentic identity.

I walked the block full of storefronts in downtown Eatonton, where each was decked in purple clothing, balloons, ribbons and photos of Walker. One storefront displayed copies of Walker’s books, 60s female artist album covers (Roberta Flack’s First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Janis Ian’s debut album) and Walker quotes incorporated into handmade art.

As I meandered down the block and east to the Plaza Arts Center, host location of most activities, the red carpet welcome could not have been more evident, from a sign pointing to free event parking at the Methodist Church to nature doing its part with a profusion of purple Passion Flowers in bloom at the gorgeous Victorian home across the street.

I made my way inside the beautifully refurbished Arts Center, once a school, where an abundance of local volunteers in brightly graphic event T-shirts made the check-in line short and friendly.

And So It Begins …

When we bought our tickets, guests were given a choice of sold-out area bus tours or a documentary film showing. Those who know me well can probably guess which choice I made, to see the 2010 documentary Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth followed by a conversation with filmmaker Pratibha Parmar. The exceptional documentary brought forth much emotion from the audience. I highly recommend watching it; you can stream it for $9.99 on Vimeo.

After the film, I took my bagged lunch outside and invited myself to sit with perfect strangers, who turned out to be a diverse group of new friends I hope will stay in touch. I met the retired Emeritus Professor of History at Georgia College & State University and his wife, along with another Georgia College professor who was the main tour guide volunteer, and two Atlanta women in their 50s who have been friends since high school in New Orleans.

Attendees with Rebecca Walker (2nd from left) and her father Melvyn Leventhal

Among the many things I learned from my new friends is that there is an entire track of study at Georgia College based on the history and works of Alice Walker. I may have to enroll!

While my observation was that there were more African-American women over age 50 in attendance than any other demographic, the crowd was a healthy mix of black, brown and white: young people, elderly folk, and area residents more apparent by their attire which ranged from seersucker jackets and pressed khakis for the men to specially-made Butler-Baker High School T-shirts worn by Ms. Walker’s friends. The latter gesture was a complete surprise to her. The shouts, screams and hugs when her friends spotted her in the auditorium left few dry eyes in the room.

An Inspiring Afternoon

During the afternoon, an accomplished group of writers and performers paid tribute to Walker as she sat in her namesake boxed seats in the Arts Center auditorium. Violinist and writer Melanie Hill got the entire crowd, including Walker, moving in their seats with her stirring opening of Stevie Wonder’s “As.”

Walker’s biographer Evelyn White, Atlantan Tayari Jones, author of the bestselling 2018 novel An American Marriage; Agnes Scott College poetry professor and author Kamilah Aisha Moon; Daniel Black, novelist and Clark Atlanta University professor; and Walker’s daughter, writer/activist  Rebecca Walker, all touched me deeply with their poignant choices of Walker’s poetry and book passages. At one point, my seatmate handed me a wad of tissues. Maybe it was when Rebecca read “We have a beautiful mother,” crying as she struggled to get those five words out.

Walker’s 14-year-old grandson, Tenzin, capped the tribute with his polished piano performance of a song he composed just for the event, which visibly moved both Walker and her daughter.

Later in the day, Walker seemed happily surprised yet again when her former husband, noted Civil and Voting Rights Attorney Melvyn Leventhal, and Margaret Avery, the actress who played Shug Avery in The Color Purple, both offered champagne toasts to her.

It’s Not a Party Unless You Dance

Walker and Valerie Boyd during their conversation

Following the last event, a no-holds-barred conversation between Walker and Valerie Boyd, we all got a fun surprise – an invitation to join Walker and Boyd on stage, and as Walker said, “it’s not a party if there’s no dancing.” Around 100 of the 500 guests, myself included, took her up on the offer. Walker’s curated song choices: Rock Steady by Aretha Franklin and As by Stevie Wonder. You may find evidence on the Instagram hashtag #AW75!

No one that I interacted with left this event with anything but happy feelings and I’m still experiencing the Alice Walker high.

Closing Thoughts

I met a 36-year-old Political Science professor at Georgia College, Claire Sanders, who grew up in neighboring Greene County. Like my own, her joy was apparent. “This event is renewing my sense of hope for this area, for Georgia,” Sanders said. “Things are changing for the better here and being in the presence of Ms. Walker and having others see the inclusivity today is a highlight of my life.”

One of the organizers shared with me that the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department deputy, a white male, stationed outside the Arts Center said that, despite having to change his uniform three times due to the heat, he wanted to convey that it was one of the most meaningful events of his career. 

Daniel Black made many of us laugh when he said, “She did not wait to die to be ancestral.” Indeed, Ms. Walker offered nearly 700 of us a wide-open look into her life, her family and her writing process.

What a gift she, the organizers and 119 volunteers gave to us! Happy 75th to my favorite American writer!

Rose Scott of Closer Look on WABE/90.1 FM interviewing author Tayari Jones

Read Atlanta Magazine’s story on Alice Walker 75 here!