Lucille Clifton's 'water sign woman' On-Air
Just last night, Santa Fe's KSFR 101.1 FM Public Radio show "Audio Saucepan" aired a reading of Lucille Clifton's poem "water sign woman." The poem is found in the new The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010.
"Audio Saucepan" combines jazz, back country, and world sounds with interpretive readings of poetry and recorded words. The show airs each Sunday from 5 to 6 PM (Mountain Time) on KSFR 101.1FM Santa Fe Public Radio, and streams live on the internet via www.ksfr.org.
water sign woman
the woman who feels everything
sits in her new house
waiting for someone to come
who knows how to carry water
without spilling, who knows
why the desert is sprinkled
with salt, why tomorrow
is such a long and ominous word.
they say to the feel things woman
that little she dreams is possible,
that there is only so much
joy to go around, only so much
water. there are no questions
for this, no arguments. she has
to forget to remember the edge
of the sea, they say, to forget
how to swim to the edge, she has
to forget how to feel. the woman
who feels everything sits in her
new house retaining the secret
the desert knew when it walked
up from the ocean, the desert,
so beautiful in her eyes;
water will come again
if you can wait for it.
she feels what the desert feels.
she waits.
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