WEBVTT

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I'd like to end with a
poem which has no title.

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It's from the book,
An Ordinary Woman.

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I wrote this poem.

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I believed it,

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I believe it sincerely.

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But I like to think of myself
as a positive kind of poet

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and a positive kind of person,
and I wasn't sure this was.

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So I went to the
wisest man I know,

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whose name is Fred
Clifton, and I asked him.

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And he said Lucille, the
truth is always positive.

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Didn't I tell you?

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He was the wisest man I know.

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"And so the 38th year of
my life plain as bread,

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round as a cake, an ordinary
woman, an ordinary woman.

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I had expected to be smaller
than this, more beautiful,

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wiser in African
ways, more confident.

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I had expected more than this.

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I will be 40 soon.

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My mother once was 40.

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My mother died at 44, a
woman of sad countenance

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leaving behind a girl
awkward as a stork.

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My mother was thick.

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Her hair was a jungle and
she was very wise and very

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beautiful and very sad.

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I have dreamed dreams for
you mama more than once.

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I have wrapped me in
your skin and made

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you live again more than once.

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I have taken the bones you
hardened and built daughters,

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and they blossom and promise
fruit like African trees.

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I am a woman now,
an ordinary woman.

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In the 38th year of
my life surrounded

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by life, a perfect picture
of blackness blessed,

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I had not expected
this loneliness.

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If it is Western, if it is
the final Europe in my mind,

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if in the middle of my life
I am turning the final turn

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into the shining dark, let me
come to it whole and holy, not

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afraid, not lonely out of my
mother's life into my own,

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into my own.

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I had expected more than this.

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I had not expected to
be an ordinary woman."

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Thank you very much for listening.

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[APPLAUSE]

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This gesture means the God in
me recognizes the God in you.

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Thank you.

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