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He will not light long enough for the interpreter to gather the tatters of his speech. But the longer we listen the calmer he becomes. He shows me the place where his daughter has rubbed with a coin, violaceous streaks raising a skeletal pattern on his chest. He thinks he’s been hit by the wind. He’s worried it will become pneumonia.

"What you are struggling with," said the psychologist, "is a continuous song, something like a telephone's tone. Nebulous, noncommittal, unrelenting, pretending to give you messages it can't deliver. Because the body is unattached. It is," he said, "like a valentine sent out cold, beautiful, brittle as tomorrow's deja-vu, but distortedly misaddressed. These pills will help you find yourself somewhere where the lace ends up loose and the paste is still humming all about you.

1963 What shall I tell my children who are black Of what it means to be a captive in this dark skin What shall I tell my dear one, fruit of my womb, Of how beautiful they are when everywhere they turn They are faced with abhorrence of everything that is black. Villains are black with black hearts. A black cow gives no milk. A black hen lays no eggs. Bad news comes bordered in black, black is evil And evil is black and devils' food is black… What shall I tell my dear ones raised in a white world A place where white has been made to represent All that is good and pure and fine and decent. Where clouds are white, and dolls, and heaven Surely is a white, white place with angels Robed in white, and cotton candy and ice cream and milk and ruffled Sunday dresses And dream houses and long sleek cadillacs And angel's food is white…all, all…white. What can I say therefore, when my child Comes home in tears because a playmate Has called him black, big lipped, flatnosed and nappy headed? What will he think When I dry his tears and whisper, "Yes, that's true. But no less beautiful and dear." How shall I lift up his head, get him to square His shoulders, look his adversaries in the eye, Confident of the knowledge of his worth, Serene under his sable skin and proud of his own beauty? What can I do to give him strength That he may come through life's adversities As a whole human being unwarped and human in a world Of biased laws and inhuman practices, that he might Survive. And survive he must! For who knows? Perhaps this black child here bears the genius To discover the cure for…Cancer Or to chart the course for exploration of the universe. So, he must survive for the good of all humanity. He must and will survive. I have drunk deeply of late from the foundation Of my black culture, sat at the knee and learned From Mother Africa, discovered the truth of my heritage, The truth, so often obscured and omitted. And I find I have much to say to my black children. I will lift up their heads in proud blackness With the story of their fathers and their fathers Fathers. And I shall take them into a way back time of Kings and Queens who ruled the Nile, And measured the stars and discovered the Laws of mathematics. Upon whose backs have been built The wealth of continents. I will tell him This and more. And his heritage shall be his weapon And his armor; will make him strong enough to win Any battle he may face. And since this story is Often obscured, I must sacrifice to find it For my children, even as I sacrificed to feed, Clothe and shelter them. So this I will do for them If I love them. None will do it for me. I must find the truth of heritage for myself And pass it on to them. In years to come I believe Because I have armed them with the truth, my children And my children's children will venerate me. For it is the truth that will make us free!

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since 1963. Then, my concern was particularly for my own people and this version was written especially for them. I am happy that it has done and is doing its job. However, I want it to be known, that I am not a proponent of the concept of cultural nationalism. I dearly love and am proud of my good, serious, sincere black people, yet at the same time, my concern is with all people of goodwill no matter the color. I make no mystique of blackness. I am a humanist. Indeed, I am a universalist. This truth, I know. The liberation of black people in the United States is tightly linked with the liberation of black people in the far flung diaspora. Further, and more important, the liberation of black and oppressed people all over the world, is linked with the struggles of the workers of the world of every nationality and color against the common oppressors, overlords, and exploiters of their labor. Thus it was only natural that I should write "What Shall We Tell Our Children?" in 1973. I have tried to tell them the facts of life and the truth as I see it: I hope I have succeeded. What shall we tell our children who are black? What shall we tell our children who are white? What shall we tell children of every race and hue? For all children are the children of all of us And all of us bear responsibility for all children What shall we tell them? How can we show them the conditions of their lives So they will see how they can change them? Those who are poverty stricken in the midst of plenty Who must live in rat-infested slums While decent homes stand empty Who go to bed hungry While grocery shelves are heavy Who huddle in tattered rags While racks in stores are sagging Who yearn for a good education But languish in programmed illiteracy Whose intellectual growth is stunted And whose ignorance is compounded While the Academies produce more drones for the labor colony What shall we tell them? How can we show them the conditions of their lives So they will see how they can change them? What shall we tell our children The men and women of the future? We shall tell them the truth It is our bounden duty to tell them the truth It may be painful. We must tell them the truth We may be criticized. We must tell them the truth We may be castigated. We must tell them the truth The truth it shall be, shall show them the conditions of their lives Of a glorified way of life, the greatest in the world Which is not concerned with people, but with profits Not with the well-being of many, but with the interests of a few Not with the welfare and future of the people But only with the profit-making present We shall tell them the truth about a way of life The greatest in the world Where freedom and equality is granted to every man, woman, and child Where everyone, providing he is willing to do what is necessary Can become rich and wealthy by doing others before they do you Where everyone, including you Can acquire life's most important goodies Like split-level houses, with wall-to-wall carpeting completely furnished And two cars and two color T.V.'s And the latest style clothes and minks And schminks and everything! We shall tell them the truth About a way of life The greatest in the world Which rejects the wisdom of its seers and sages And whose culture is dictated and delineated by Violent, vicious, destructive Murderous, unfeeling, crude And quick on the draw supermen Who deem the men and women of the future As expendable and shunt them off to Purposeless death in the name of patria and patriotism Who slaughter the innocents who protest or speak for Peace We shall tell them the truth We shall tell them the truth About a way of life, t

So I go to Ashenda to get some fix Shandar there playing his lute & a dark haired angel combing a violin I cry Anatolia! Anatolia! I'm a nightingale shrieking dawn's first flick I'm the unknown soldier singing it's me again I say one more & I'm ready for the Western World Then I'm at a bar with Lucinda & we're drooling on the body on discipline and the reign of Robespierre Then it's consummation time & I say hey there's a ram butting at the door & a widow's crying for something I say Lucinda I've got a drum in my belly & she says I'm a goddamn shivering eel Then it's polka on a South Dakota lawn Shandar doodling Shahrazad stomping by the window soaking up the light Then we all smoke Camels & Lucinda says I wish I could live without having to disown & I say yeah tell me more about that

What should I say, Since faith is dead, And truth away From you is fled? Should I be led With doubleness? Nay, nay, mistress! I promised you, And you promised me, To be as true As I would be. But since I see Your double heart, Farewell my part! Though for to take It is not my mind, But to forsake [One so unkind] And as I find, So will I trust: Farewell, unjust! Can ye say nay? But you said That I alway Should be obeyed? And thus betrayed Or that I wiste— Farewell, unkissed.

I believe that witness is a magnitude of vulnerability. That when I say love what I mean is not a feeling nor promise of a feeling. I believe in attention. My love for you is a monolith of try. The woman I love pays an inordinate amount of attention to large and small objects. She is not described by anything. Because I could not mean anything else, she knows exactly what I mean. Once upon a time a line saw itself clear to its end. I have seen the shape of happiness. (y=mx+b) I am holding it. It is your hand.

The birds against the April wind Flew northward, singing as they flew; They sang, “The land we leave behind Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.” “O wild-birds, flying from the South, What saw and heard ye, gazing down?” “We saw the mortar’s upturned mouth, The sickened camp, the blazing town! “Beneath the bivouac’s starry lamps, We saw your march-worn children die; In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps, We saw your dead uncoffined lie. “We heard the starving prisoner’s sighs And saw, from line and trench, your sons Follow our flight with home-sick eyes Beyond the battery’s smoking guns.” “And heard and saw ye only wrong And pain,” I cried, “O wing-worn flocks?” “We heard,” they sang, “the freedman’s song, The crash of Slavery’s broken locks! “We saw from new, uprising States The treason-nursing mischief spurned, As, crowding Freedom’s ample gates, The long-estranged and lost returned. “O’er dusky faces, seamed and old, And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil, With hope in every rustling fold, We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil. “And struggling up through sounds accursed, A grateful murmur clomb the air; A whisper scarcely heard at first, It filled the listening heavens with prayer. “And sweet and far, as from a star, Replied a voice which shall not cease, Till, drowning all the noise of war, It sings the blessed song of peace!” So to me, in a doubtful day Of chill and slowly greening spring, Low stooping from the cloudy gray, The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing. They vanished in the misty air, The song went with them in their flight; But lo! they left the sunset fair, And in the evening there was light.

Not long ago, I studied medicine. It was terrible, what the body told. I’d look inside another person’s mouth, And see the desolation of the world. I’d see his genitals and think of sin. Because my body speaks the stranger’s language, I’ve never understood those nods and stares. My parents held me in their arms, and still I think I’ve disappointed them; they care And stare, they nod, they make their pilgrimage To somewhere distant in my heart, they cry. I look inside their other-person’s mouths And see the wet interior of souls. It’s warm and red in there—like love, with teeth. I’ve studied medicine until I cried All night. Through certain books, a truth unfolds. Anatomy and physiology, The tiny sensing organs of the tongue— Each nameless cell contributing its needs. It was fabulous, what the body told.

Air here is like the water Of an aquarium that’s been lived in for a while—clear and still Beyond the rigors Of glass; appearing cold (and clear) as spring streams Fed by snow and ice, But unexpectedly warm to feel, and inviting; side-lit— A vitality of shadows Once you come into it, and long bars of light Burning like spots, Remarkable for the absence of dust in their sharp crossfires; Heavy, as crystal Is heavy, as if to move here would mean pushing against a force Palpable, and strong; Yet rich with prospects of life, comfortable With the idea of life, As if, put on its slide, every drop is stocked with wonders, Swarming, about to burst— Beautiful in a way, One element sustaining another, our message brought home So that the living Might come to see. Harder to say that without them We are nothing— Water without air; or to speak of our isolation, Or our special loneliness; Or say as they look right through us, at their plants, Pictures, books, Windows, reflections, and blank white walls, That we need them, To orient ourselves and to tell us who we are; Or that with each look They are swimming to within our sights; or that we are always casting Wider and wider And that even now they are fighting to avoid our nets.