National Poetry Month: Lucille Clifton

I was very fortunate to have seen her and Mark Doty give a lecture at the Dodge Poetry Festival a number of years ago. And one day while flipping through channels I saw that they were showing the lecture on a pbs station. This was pre-cable so the picture wasn't the greatest. I saw a guy stand up to ask a question, but I wasn't entirely paying attention. Until I realized the person was me.

telling our stories
the fox came every evening to my door
asking for nothing. my fear
trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her
but she sat till morning, waiting.

at dawn we would, each of us,
rise from our haunches, look through the glass
then walk away.

did she gather her village around her
and sing of the hairless moon face,
the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?

child, i tell you now it was not
the animal blood i was hiding from,
it was the poet in her, the poet and
the terrible stories she could tell.