She was known as Eartha Mae born in the small town of North in the The Palmetto State

Her childhood was even a mystery that she wished to forget from suffering abuse and neglect all because of her skin color - a light pale complexion - commonly referred as "yella"

She was of fair complexion due to the racial mix of African-American, European, and Cherokee Native American descent

Eartha was poorly treated and abandoned by others till she was saved by a Good Samaritan and taken to New York

Nurtured and raised into the Big Apple flair, she flourished and sprouted like flowers from the Earth

Charismatic and mysterious, she was like her name - spiritual and intuitive, she had a deep connection to the Great Mother (Earth)

The elements on Earth resided within her

Earth is the body, Water set in blood, Air is in the breath, and Fire ruled a free spirit

As a dancer with the legendary teacher, Katherine Dunham, who motivated the shy young girl to blossom and shine

She learned new languages and traveled to far and wide exotic places soaking up foreign cultures and faces

She was always searching for love and acceptance and enjoyed it though short and brief until she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl that she affectionately named Kitt

Eartha's life was now complete now that she had her child - someone to cherish and love

Both were different as night and day but their love ran deeper and stronger than skin - everyone noticed the powerful bond that couldn't be severed

Eartha had a subtle sensuality with a rich silky velvet speaking voice that turned vibrant, versatile, and passionate whenever she sang

A commanding powerful stage presence with a royal and noble aura - she possessed the carriage of a divinely queen

Outspoken and bold, she was not afraid to tell the truth - it nearly cost her career and left her exiled out of America until her triumphant return to Broadway in 1978, when she performed in the play, Timbuktu!

Her career was resurrected and skyrocketed once more and led her to many more places and open doors bringing fans from old generations and new, the queen had returned and was living life rich and fully

A strong social activist, she fought racism and injustice bringing unity and peace in numerous subtle ways from dance to social causes, she was admired and loved for being different and a vocal advocate for the outcast and rejected

On Christmas Day 2008, she left the world behind with Kitt by her side

Although she's gone, she will never be forgotten - her legacy lives on in her music and lives she touched

Farewell, Eartha Kitt

my wife tells me Lady Bird Johnson
was a woman of reknown
until she career blighted Catwoman meow!
She had a problem recognizing people had a difference of opinion into Nam
Eartha orders her own taxi
water under the bridge for Lady Bird

We endeavor to construct boxes and file folders
This life being ****** complex
And messy to boot, so we approximate sanity
By filling compartments and writing thumbnail biographies,
And even though she packed the costume admirably
(Already forty, mind you, but nowhere near gone to fat)
Julie Newmar had already filled both outfit and niche
(And never mind Halle Berry’s turn,
Different raiment for a different time, after all,
And one suspects the next iteration of said slinky supervillainess
Will wear nothing more than feline-shaped ****** rings),
Not to mention she’d already entered our collective consciousness
With a frothy Noel novelty (unsubstantial, inconsequential
In and of its ownself, perhaps, but then one considers
The version foisted off on the populace by that woman
Who appropriated the moniker of the Blessed ******,
All phoned-in faux Betty Boop, and one reconsiders)
So this was who she was, the book closed and sealed
(English only, never mind the other three tongues she spoke
Plus three more she proficiently purred in.)
They say when she died, she did not go gently, as it were,
But screamed and yowled for all she was still worth,
And maybe it was the cancer, certainly enough to do the job itself,
But perhaps it was the notion
That her era of innuendo and intimation was all done,
That she was transitioning to the static, to becoming a legacy,
A permanence that was stalking her,
Murderous, insatiable, inexorable.

Daisy chains and sheltered coves
Gaze into the turquoise landscape
Coldstreams on the island
Where have you been?
Let us talk of the past
Reinvoke the present
And remember that's how strong my love is
Filed under found

I’m in a mood, I have no idea who I am? I thought this would be easy, all my experience make me into this person who I cannot access. Who am I, as I search on social media, the girl with the big **** or the big *****, with the great personality and care-free attitude, am I any of them, I don’t know. The answer is right in front of me and somehow it’s locked. Will it take me a lifetime to find who I am because social media has told me, better yet showed me how people are so confident with who they are! They show James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Muhammad Ali and ******* Eartha Kitt, famous faces, unapologetically themselves. That is what social media said so why haven’t I found the answer to the big question. WHO AM I???

Of course it's three a.m. again--
Time long encircled in the blues--
And grateful for the company
I pull out old shellacs;
Dinah, Eartha, Big Maybelle,
Then Tina, early blues with Ike
On a long playing record, songs by
Little Walter, Blues Boy King,
Songs Ginny used to sing
At juke joints in northwest Tennessee,
Before she made her way out west,
Vegas and L.A., when cheap scotch at midnight was enough.
And now, somehow, pure grain and Percocet
Have stopped her, some say accidentally.
Man trouble too,
Horn players with habits,
Car dealers and one evangelist,
Backslidden but believing,
Tapped now to speak well,
Ignore vices and regrets.