Free Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful by Alice Walker

EACH ONE, PULL ONE
(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)
    We must say it all, and as clearly
    as we can. For, even before we are dead,
    they are busy
    trying to bury us.
    Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
    Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
    Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country
    or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?
    But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,
    as clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated
    enough to cry and scream?
    Well, then, they will fill our eyes,
    our ears, our noses and our mouths
    with the mud
    of oblivion. They will chew up
    our fingers in the night. They will pick
    their teeth with our pens. They will sabotage
    both our children
    and our art.
    Because when we show what we see,
    they will discern the inevitable:
    We do not worship them.
    We do not worship them.
    We do not worship what they have made.
    We do not trust them.
    We do not believe what they say.
    We do not love their efficiency.
    Or their power plants.
    We do not love their factories.
    Or their smog.
    We do not love their television programs.
    Or their radioactive leaks.
    We find their papers boring.
    We do not worship their cars.
    We do not worship their blondes.
    We do not envy their penises.
    We do not think much
    of their Renaissance.
    We are indifferent to England.
    We have grave doubts about their brains.
    In short, we who write, paint, sculpt, dance
    or sing
    share the intelligence and thus the fate
    of all our people
    in this land.
    We are not different from them,
    neither above nor below,
    outside nor inside.
    We are the same.
    And we do not worship them.
    We do not worship them.
    We do not worship their movies.
    We do not worship their songs.
    We do not think their newscasts
    cast the news.
    We do not admire their president.
    We know why the White House is white.
    We do not find their children irresistible;
    We do not agree they should inherit the earth.
    But lately you have begun to help them
    bury us. You who said: King was just a womanizer;
    Malcom, just a thug; Sojourner, folksy; Hansberry,
    a traitor (or whore, depending); Fannie Lou Hamer,
    merely spunky; Zora Hurston, Nella Larsen, Toomer:
    reactionary, brainwashed, spoiled by whitefolks, minor;
    Agnes Smedley, a spy.
    I look into your eyes;
    you are throwing in the dirt.
    You, standing in the grave
    with me. Stop it!
    Each one must pull one.
    Look, I, temporarily on the rim
    of the grave,
    have grasped my mother’s hand
    my father’s leg.
    There is the hand of Robeson
    Langston’s thigh
    Zora’s arm and hair
    your grandfather’s lifted chin
    the lynched woman’s elbow
    what you’ve tried to forget
    of your grandmother’s frown.
    Each one, pull one back into the sun
    We who have stood over
    so many graves
    know that no matter what they do
    all of us must live
    or none.

WHO?
    Who has not been
    invaded
    by the Wasichu?
    Not I, said the people.
    Not I, said the trees.
    Not I, said the waters.
    Not I, said the rocks.
    Not I, said the air.
    Moon!
    We hoped
    you were safe.

WITHOUT
COMMERCIALS
    Listen,
    stop tanning yourself
    and talking about
    fishbelly
    white.
    The color white
    is not bad at all.
    There are white mornings
    that bring us days.
    Or, if you must,
    tan only because
    it makes you happy
    to be brown,
    to be able to see
    for a summer
    the whole world’s
    darker
    face
    reflected
    in your own.
    *
    Stop unfolding
    your eyes.
    Your eyes are
    beautiful.
    Sometimes
    seeing you in the street
    the fold zany
    and unexpected
    I want to kiss
    them
    and usually
    it is only
    old
    gorgeous
    black people’s eyes
    I want
    to kiss.
    **
    Stop trimming
    your nose.
    When you
    diminish
    your nose
    your songs
    become little
    tinny, muted
    and snub.
    Better you should
    have a nose
    impertinent
    as a flower,
    sensitive
    as a root;
    wise, elegant,
    serious and deep.
    A nose that
    sniffs
    the essence
    of Earth. And knows
    the message
    of every
    leaf.
    ***
    Stop bleaching
    your skin
    and talking
    about
    so much black
    is not