Toni Morrison stamped the very idea of a great American novel with her own brand of storytelling and on her own terms. I don’t know a writer or reader of any genre who isn’t mourning her today. She proved the power of her black characters and the value of their black lives through books loved by readers who do and do not have everything in common with those characters. She was also undeniable in her power as an essayist, and showed her respect for and influence by other genres with her plays (Dreaming Emmett and Desdemona) and her only published short story (“Recitatif”). Of course, she wrote poems. Her work in verse seems over and again to show us a woman facing death, and facing it with all the life she can. It’s as if she knows who she is and that, in that knowing, her declarations here will live forever.

—Jericho Brown, Poetry Editor

Eve Remembering

1

I tore from a limb fruit that had lost its green.

My hands were warmed by the heat of an apple

Fire red and humming.

I bit sweet power to the core.

How can I say what it was like?

The taste! The taste undid my eyes

And led me far from the gardens planted for a child

To wildernesses deeper than any master’s call.

2

Now these cool hands guide what they once caressed;

Lips forget what they have kissed.

My eyes now pool their light

Better the summit to see.

3

I would do it all over again:

Be the harbor and set the sail,

Loose the breeze and harness the gale,

Cherish the harvest of what I have been.

Better the summit to scale.

Better the summit to be.

The Perfect Ease of Grain

The perfect ease of grain

Time enough to spill

The flavor of a woman carried through the rain.

Honey-talk tongues

Down home dreams

A rushed by shapely prayer.

Evening lips part to hush

Questions raised at dawn.

The melon yields another slice.

Fingers understand.

Ecstasy becomes us all.

Red cherries become jam.

Deep juvenile sleep

A whistle trace

White shorelines in green air.

Welcome doors held open

When goodbye is “So long.”

The perfect poise of grain

Time enough to spill

The flavor of a woman remembered on a train.

Someone Leans Near

Someone leans near

And sees the salt your eyes have shed.

You wait, longing to hear

Words of reason, love or play

To lash or lull you toward the hollow day.

Silence kneads your fear

Of crumbled star-ash sifting down

Clouding the rooms here, here.

You shore up your heart to run. To stay.

But no sign or design marks the narrow way.

Then on your skin a breath caresses

The salt your eyes have shed.

And you remember a call clear, so clear

“You will never die again.”

Once more you know

You will never die again.

It Comes Unadorned

It comes

Unadorned

Like a phrase

Strong enough to cast a spell;

It comes

Unbidden,

Like the turn of sun through hills

Or stars in wheels of song.

The jeweled feet of women dance the earth.

Arousing it to spring.

Shoulders broad as a road bend to share the weight of years.

Profiles breach the distance and lean

Toward an ordinary kiss.

Bliss.

It comes naked into the world like a charm.

I Am Not Seaworthy

I am not seaworthy.

Look how the fish mistake my hair for home.

I had a life, like you. I shouldn’t be riding the sea.

I am not seaworthy.

Let me be earth bound; star fixed

Mixed with sun and smacking air.

Give me the smile, the magic kiss

To trick little boy death of my hand.

I am not seaworthy. Look how the fish mistake my hair for home.

Five Poems, featuring the poetry of Toni Morrison, illustrated by Kara Walker, was published as part of a project called “Rainmaker Editions” under the aegis of the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). In 2006, IIML became the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

The book, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and held by the New York Public Library, is available for acquisition through the Black Mountain Institute’s office of development and strategic programs, alongside the rest of Rainmaker’s fine press catalogue.