i want to stay here & i'll be glad

hallo. it's been a while. again. oh well, i'm back. and since my last post i have: written a thesis, graduated, moved my sister and nieces from dallas to berkeley, gotten into and out of a relationship, gotten a full-time, union job (!) at a non-profit, moved myself from one part of oakland to another, and, most recently, found out that i won the GRAND PRIZE of $1,000 in the poetry ark competition for my poem, made flesh.

holy shit! no wonder i haven't been on this thing!

so now i am settling into my new home and job and i am coming out of the winter, as i know all of you must be also, and the world smells fresh. i smelled it today. all of this, turning. i am falling in love and the world is filled with hummingbirds, chuparosa, flowers. daylight getting longer.




from my journal, last entry before before akilah died:

while this tumult
random shots
penoptigon, or what have you
permanent disregard for revolt
straight
lybians refusing to fire on libyans

plus, love
there is love
lazy eye and tongue
gruesome and staggering
shock, baby
information
pissed, and wrapped
monarchy, armchair
putty
what we do with power
that stuff - its'shapes
what we make
dream . negotiate



then, after she died:



there are sirens in oakland at your memorial
the shaking of change
the day after knowing



we spent nine days uplifting akilah, thanks to lou florez. i could feel the work happening. and i have loved her so much this past week and i've felt grateful to have just spoken to her before she passed. we were planning things. paris in the summer, and i was to stay in her apartment at the end of march. she was happy, had been following news of the revolutions going on in egypt and tunisia. she was giddy about it, we both were, and imagining things. she told me she was still looking for her lover.. and i told her about the working class reading series that amber dipietra and i are starting and i asked her if she would read and she said, in the most tender and delighted voice, "yes, michelle, i would love to read at your series." we talked about having her in the fall. all of these things, not to be. just believed in by us for that night, and a few days after. i will miss her forever.

and now she is uplifted and it is time to tend to the business of spring, all of us left here. it is time for loving. and it is time for revolution. it is time for what is tender, for what i love most.

p.s. i'm headed to philly & NYC at the end of march and, thanks to debrah morkun, i'll be reading at molly's bookstore in philly on 4/2 with my beloved tai amri spann-wilson, kim gek lin short, and prolly one more person. come out, if you can! this don't happen every day!

xx