There are poets who carve out and queer me. Lucille is one of those writers. The poems in the anniversary edition of The Book of Light came “from a transcendent, collective knowing”. Ross Gay in the intro goes on to describe her work and “voice” as a ‘shimmer of influence, a kind of glimmering evidence of something beyond oneself’.
I think of such Shimmers and Glimmers as Risky Creativity and often, all letter-writing-love like, put pen to paper and stamp to envelope to explore such honeycombing, queer magic with one of my beLoveds. I also recently asked my dad, who turns eighty today, to write about his first experiences with “things existing beyond oneself.” He’s still working on his piece. I look forward to reading it and in the meantime share Lucille.
11/10 Again by Lucille Clifton
some say the radiance around the body
can be seen by eyes latticed against
all light but the particular. they say
you can notice something rise
from the houseboat of the body
wearing the body’s face,
and that you can feel the presence
of a possible otherwhere.
not mystical, they say, but human,
human to lift away from the arms that
try to hold you (as you did then)
and, brilliance magnified,
circle beyond the ironwork
encasing your human heart.