Hi, it's me, Sister Doctor Lex,
and welcome to week 5 of Audre Lorde Resurrection Sundays.
Can you believe we've already been doing this for more than a month?
Thanks for watching again.
Right now, I am in Anguilla visiting my family, and I am so happy to be here,
and definitely feeling very close to the energy of my ancestors
and the divinity that I always feel when I'm here.
So this week's poem is called "Call",
from Audre Lorde's 1986 collection "Our Dead Behind Us".
And she explains the name of the goddess that you will hear repeated in this poem,
Aido Hwedo is the Rainbow Serpent,
and also in this powm, the name for all those ancient divinities
whose names and faces have been forgotten.
"Call
Holy ghost woman
stolen out of your name
Rainbow Serpent
whose faces have been forgotten
Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me
with a lighter burden
Aido Hwedo is coming.
On worn kitchen stools and tables
we are piecing our weapons together
scraps of different histories
do not let us shatter
any altar
she who scrubs the capitol toilets, listening
is your sister's youngest daughter
gnarled Harriet's anointed
you have not been without honor
even the young guerrilla has chosen
yells as she fires into the thicket
Aido Hwedo is coming.
I have written your names on my cheekbone
dreamed your eyes
flesh my epiphany
most ancient goddesses
hear me enter
I have not forgotten your worship
nor my sisters
nor the sons of my daughters
my children watch for your print in their labors
and they say Aido Hwedo is coming.
I am a Black woman turning
mouthing your name as a password
through seductions self-slaughter
and I believe in the holy ghost mother
in your flames beyond our vision
blown light through the fingers of women
enduring warring
sometimes outside your name
we do not choose all our rituals
Thandi Modise winged girl of Soweto
brought fire back home in the snout of a mortar
and passes the word from her prison cell
whispering Aido Hwedo is coming.
Rainbow Serpent who must not go unspoken
I have ottered up the safety of separations
sung the spirals of power
and what fills the spaces
before power unfolds or flounders
in desirable non-essentials
I am a Black woman
stripped down and praying
my whole life has been an altar
worth its ending
and I say Aido Hwedo is coming.
I may be a weed in the garden
of women I have loved
who are still trapped in their season
but even they shriek
as they rip burning gold from their skins
Aido Hwedo is coming.
We are learning by heart
what has never been taught
you are my given fire-tongued
Oya Seboulisa Mawu Afrekete
and now we are mourning our sisters
lost to the false hush of sorrow
to hardness and hatchets and childbirth
and we are shouting
Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer
Assata Shakur and Yaa Asantewa
my mother and Winnie Mandela are singing in my throat
the holy ghosts linguist
one iron silence broken
Aido Hwedo is calling
calling
your daughters are named
and conceiving
Mother loosen my tongue
or adorn me
with a lighter burden
Aido Hwedo is coming.
Aido Hwedo is coming."
So of course, I love this poem.
I love that this poem is about collective survival,
about the survival of that black, feminine, transformative, warrior spirit,
divinely flowing through Audre Lorde of course,
flowing through anyone who reembodies and narrates this poem,
flowing through, as she names, the sisters,
the daughters, the sons of the daughters,
even the closeted women who she loves and who treat her like a weed in their garden,
still, that energy moves through.
And I am so grateful for the way that energy can be with us,
and the way this poem makes space for that energy to move through
as faith, as wisdom, as each of us.
And speaking of South Africa, and clearing space,
and black feminine transformative warrior divinity,
and calling names,
Gloria Joseph sent out a very timely and pointed email recently,
asking from a black feminist perspective
why is it, that as we honour and uplift Nelson Mandela,
and his recent transition to join the ancestors,
the name Winnie Mandela has been conspicuously absent,
and has not been lifted up in the way that it might be.
And so in the spirit of honouring that inquiry, which I think we could all think about,
and lifting up the name of Winnie Mandela as Audre Lorde does in this poem,
I want to offer the Poem For The Letter W
that I distilled when I was reading through, working with this poem, 26 times.
So this is the Poem For The Letter W.
Woman whose worn
we weapons without written worship
watch woman women warring
we winged word whispering
who? what woman?
whole worth weed women
who? we
what? we.
we, Winnie Mandela."
And your assignment this week
is to call the names of those ancestrally present,
those living, those who you intend to live one day,
who will carry this warrior, transformative energy that we so need in the times that we live in.
So call the names of your own ancestors,
call the names of the warriors you admire,
call your own name in the mirror,
this week, making space for that transformative energy that you may need,
as a warrior in your own life,
and that we certainly, collectively, need
as those who have the stewardship for carrying this energy forward
among our species and on our planet.
As always, I am so grateful to Audre Lorde for giving us the space, giving us this poem
as a ritual to bring that energy through.
And I'm so happy to be able to share it with you.
Please do check out the School of Our Lorde website
and hit me up if you are interested in having your own custom poem,
or in working more with the energy of the Lorde,
and... yes! I will see you next week, from Anguilla again,
on Resurrection Sunday.