After Sept-- after 9/11, I wrote some poems.
My daughter had her--
no her second, the one who's now six--
her baby a week before.
And she wouldn't put the baby down.
Her husband called me and said, Ma,
she's not going to put the baby down.
And she just sat in the rocking chair and held the baby
and fed her.
And she called.
I talked to her, and she just thought--
she knew she couldn't protect the baby.
This had made her think that, and so she was afraid.
Well, we were all afraid.
If we are not afraid most of the time,
something's wrong with us.
We are negating a lot of stuff with what
the world is really like.
And I tend to think minority people know what the world is
like because they've seen it.
I said that until Bush declares the Ku Klux
Klan a terrorist organization, I'm
not going to think he knows what he's talking about.
[LAUGHTER] But that's just the way it is.
[APPLAUSE] [INAUDIBLE].
Anyway, I taught at Columbia University for a while.
I've taught at a whole lot of places.
And when the OJ trial--
not this current one but the big bad one--
first of all, I thought it was amazing
that the papers kept saying he was a Black hero.
I've known several black people.
None of them ever liked him.
Nobody ever thought about him.
He ran through airports.
I mean that's not exciting.
He made it I hope.
And the students when the verdict came in were so upset.
Oh, my students were just, Oh, Lucille, it's
a miscarriage of justice.
And why aren't you all upset?
And I said, I'm upset, but I can't get over Emmett Till.
I can't get over Dred Scott.
So it's really hard for me to take this on as a miscarriage.
This is one of many.
Anyway, in "September Song, A Poem in Seven Days.
And then I'm going to end with a poem that has no title.
"Tuesday-- thunder and lightning, and our world
is another place.
No day will ever be the same.
No blood untouched.
They know this storm in other where--
Israel, Ireland, Palestine.
But God has blessed America, we sing.
And God has blessed America to learn that no one is exempt.
The world is one.
All fear is one.
All life, all death, all one.
Wednesday."
These are direct quotes.
"This is not the time, I think, to note
the terrorist inside who threw the brick into the mosque.
This is not the time to note the ones who
cursed God's other name, the ones who
threatened they would fill the streets with Arab children's
blood.
And this is not the time, I think,
to ask who is allowed to be American.
America all of us gathered under one flag,
praying together safely warmed by the single love
of the many tongued God."
I'm not going to read them all.
"Friday, 9/14-- some of us know we have never felt safe.
All of us Americans weeping as some of us have wept before.
Is it treason to remember?
What have we done--
what have we done to deserve such villainy?
Nothing we reassure ourselves, nothing."
I remind my students that the only power
on this Earth that has used an atom bomb
is the United States of America.
Twice-- OK, Hiroshima, but then Nagasaki
to test the starting device.
What kind of humans do this to other humans?
And then Sunday morning-- my daughter,
Bailey is-- my granddaughter, Bailey
is the one who was held by her mother.
And also, it's interesting to note
that was just around the time of Rosh Hashanah.
Anyone-- people know what Rosh Hashanah is, right?
No or yes?
I mean, if you don't, check it out.
You know, Jewish people certainly
know what Christmas is.
Why do we-- why do we have to be the ones who
everybody knows all about us?
And we think the world is full of people
who are American or want to be.
Maybe they want to be who they are.
Wouldn't that be odd?
Anyway, I was at my school.
"Sunday morning for Bailey.
The St. Mary's River flows as if nothing has happened.
I watch it with my coffee, afraid and sad, as are we all.
So many ones to hate.
And I, cursed with long memory, cursed with a desire
to understand, have never been good at hating.
Now this new granddaughter, born into a violent world as if
nothing has happened, and I am consumed
with love for all of it.
The every-dayness of bravery, of fear, of hate, of tragedy,
of death and birth, and hope, true as this river,
and especially, with love, Frederica--
Bailey Fredrica Clifton Goin, for you."
Bailey-- my daughter, Fredrica Clifton, is one of my children
who's dead.
And on her birthday, Frederica's birthday,
the last couple of years, Bailey has called and said,
Grandma, are you sad?
And I say, yes, I'm sad.
And she says, well, remember Grandma,
my name is Bailey Fredrica Clifton Goin.
Is it better now?
And I always say, of course it is.
And then the last of these--
Sunday, Monday rather, sundown, Rosh Hashanah.
And if you know about the celebration,
apples and honey are a staple of Rosh Hashanah.
"I bear witness there is no thing more human than hate.
I bear witness there is no thing more human than love.
Apples and honey, apples and honey, what is not lost
is paradise."