She is, 2018, Acrylic on paper
sonia sanchez. last poem i’m gonna write about us
My soul is made of moon dust and seawater
wish i was a poet. Actually work in reproductive healthcare.
Sun worshiper, ocean child, Californian who is making a homey place in Minnesota.
Water Around Me – Wil Brask
In March and April, there is a resurgence of spring as the cold slowly comes to a close. As spring comes solid ice melts into water. ‘Water around me’ is a piece that speaks to the changing of water and the parallel of gender fluidity and the changing of the body to water and it’s ability to change forms.
On display in The Flush of Spring
Eartha Kitt photographed at the pool by Isaac Sutton, 1959
Just so people don’t miss the significance, this is back when a black person sticking their TOE in the water was enough for some people to want the whole pool drained, and this picture in particular is five years before a motel owner poured acid on black people for being in a “whites-only” pool.
CLEANING PIECE I
Write down a sad memory.
Put it in a box.
Burn the box and sprinkle the ashes in the field.
You may give some ashes to a friend who shared the sadness.
CLEANING PIECE II
Make a numbered list of sadness in your life.
Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers.
Add a stone, each time there is sadness.
Burn the list, and appreciate the mount of stones for its beauty.
Make a numbered list of happiness in your life.
Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers.
Add a stone, each time there is happiness.
Compare the mount of stones to the one of sadness.
CLEANING PIECE III
Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) For three days
b) For forty-five days
c) For three months
See what happens to your life.
CLEANING PIECE IV
Write down everything you fear in life.
Burn it.
Pour herbal oil with a sweet scent on the ashes.
CLEANING PIECE V
Let a list of arbitrary names come into your mind as you go to sleep.
Say “bless you” after each name.
Do this with speed, by keeping a constant rhythm, so, in no way, you would hesitate to bless them.
You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer.
“A Bird That Lays Such Rotten Eggs Is Long Overdue For Extinction”
United-States
c. 1910