Free Revolutionary Petunias by Alice Walker Page B

day will come when
    revolutions will have need of beauty.
    —Albert Camus, The Rebel

REVOLUTIONARY PETUNIAS
    Sammy Lou of Rue
    sent to his reward
    the exact creature who
    murdered her husband,
    using a cultivator’s hoe
    with verve and skill;
    and laughed fit to kill
    in disbelief
    at the angry, militant
    pictures of herself
    the Sonneteers quickly drew:
    not any of them people that
    she knew.
    A backwoods woman
    her house was papered with
    funeral home calendars and
    faces appropriate for a Mississippi
    Sunday School. She raised a George,
    a Martha, a Jackie and a Kennedy. Also
    a John Wesley Junior.
    “Always respect the word of God,”
    she said on her way to she didn’t
    know where, except it would be by
    electric chair, and she continued
    “Don’t yall forgit to water
    my purple petunias.”

Expect Nothing
    Expect nothing. Live frugally
    On surprise.
    Become a stranger
    To need of pity
    Or, if compassion be freely
    Given out
    Take only enough
    Stop short of urge to plead
    Then purge away the need.
    Wish for nothing larger
    Than your own small heart
    Or greater than a star;
    Tame wild disappointment
    With caress unmoved and cold
    Make of it a parka
    For your soul.
    Discover the reason why
    So tiny human midget
    Exists at all
    So scared unwise
    But expect nothing. Live frugally
    On surprise.

Be Nobody’s Darling
    for Julius Lester
    Be nobody’s darling;
    Be an outcast.
    Take the contradictions
    Of your life
    And wrap around
    You like a shawl,
    To parry stones
    To keep you warm.
    Watch the people succumb
    To madness
    With ample cheer;
    Let them look askance at you
    And you askance reply.
    Be an outcast;
    Be pleased to walk alone
    (Uncool)
    Or line the crowded
    River beds
    With other impetuous
    Fools.
    Make a merry gathering
    On the bank
    Where thousands perished
    For brave hurt words
    They said.
    Be nobody’s darling;
    Be an outcast.
    Qualified to live
    Among your dead.

Reassurance
    I must love the questions
    themselves
    as Rilke said
    like locked rooms
    full of treasure
    to which my blind
    and groping key
    does not yet fit.

and await the answers
    as unsealed
    letters
    mailed with dubious intent
    and written in a very foreign
    tongue.

and in the hourly making
    of myself
    no thought of Time
    to force, to squeeze
    the space
    I grow into.

Nothing Is Right
    Nothing is right
    that does not work.
    We have believed it all:
    improvement, progress,
    bigger, better, immediate,
    fast.
    The whole Junk.
    It was our essence that
    never worked.
    We hasten to eradicate
    our selves.
    Consider the years
    of rage and wrench and
    mug.
    What was it kept
    the eyes alive?
    Declined to outmode
    the
    hug?

Crucifixions
    I am not an idealist, nor a cynic,
    but merely unafraid of contradictions.
    I have seen men face each other when
    both were right, yet each was determined
    to kill the other, which was wrong.
    What each man saw was an image of the
    other, made by someone else. That is
    what we are prisoners of.
—A personal testament by Donald Hogan,
    Harper’s Magazine , January, 1972

Black Mail
    Stick the finger inside
    the chink;
    nail long and sharp.
    Wriggle it,
    jugg,
    until it draws blood.
    Lick it in your mouth,
    savor the taste;
    and know your diet
    has changed.
    Be the first at the crucifixion.
    Stand me (and them and her and him)
    where once we each together
    stood.
    Find it plausible now
    to jeer,
    escaped within your armor.
    There never was a crucifixion
    of a completely armored man.
    Imagine this: a suit of mail,
    of metal plate;
    no place to press the dagger in.
    Nothing but the eyes
    to stick
    with narrow truth.
    Burning sharp,
    burning bright;
    burning righteous,
    but burning blind.

Lonely Particular
    When the people knew you
    That other time
    You were not as now
    A crowding General,
    Firing into your own
    Ranks;
    Forcing the tender skin
    Of men
    Against the guns
    The very sun
    To mangled perfection
    For your cause.
    Not General then
    But frightened boy.
    The cheering fell
    Within the quiet
    That fed