she wanted to be a blade
of grass amid the fields
but he wouldn't agree
to be a dandelion

she wanted to be a robin singing
through the leaves
but he refused to be
her tree

she spun herself into a web
and    looking for a place to rest
turned to him
but he stood straight
declining to be her corner

she tried to be a book
but he wouldn't read

she turned herself into a bulb
but he wouldn't let her grow

she decided to become
a woman
and though he still refused
to be a man
she decided it was all
right


by Nikki Giovanni






S T  ..... two's-day :) 17 dec 2013

“Nikki was, not Nikki is, Nikki loved, not Nikki loves”
came with protests, cries and noise
but how much grammar can you expect
from little girls and boys?
Who gets to illuminate
to kids of two and five and four
that death requires past participles
and sister is no more?

Well that was the longest August ever has been,
like too many hours made up each day.
The songbirds quit their singing
and the kids forgot to play.
Sluggish minutes oozed on by
in the heat like sticky tar
while her heart and hands and mind
passed to were from are.

But we’ll still wind that watch just to let it stop
at five o’clock in the afternoon,
because that tender, spiteful hour
will always come too soon.
Time will stop each time it does,
just like it did that day
when she wore her mother’s watch
and time took her away.

When did she move from is to was?
Was it that August day
when all we could do was pray and hope
and cry and hope and pray?
Since when did cold verbs bind a life,
active and passive combined,
and when did she trade present for past
and leave alive behind?

Justin understood it best,
I say in his defense;
he was the one who had it right
when he spoke in the wrong tense—
She didn’t go from is to was,
She went from did to does.
What Nikki was is sick.
What Nikki is is better.
   Remembered.
  
   Eternal.