“i found god in myself and i loved her, i loved her fiercely” —Farewell, Ntozake Shange

I’m not even going to try.

For one thing, I’m too sad to write. Because Ntozake spoke for many, and for me. And helped me find the voice with which I am speaking to you right now.

But nothing I could write would even approach her genius.

But in tribute, here’s the poem that brought me to tears the first, second…every time I read it.

But especially the first time, in the mid-70s, when I realized that someone had finally written something, “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.”

“ I was missing something
something so important
something promised
a laying on of hands
fingers near my forehead
strong
cool
moving
making me whole
sense pure
all the gods coming into me
laying me open to myself
I was missing something
something promised
something free
a laying on of hands
I know bout/laying on bodies/laying outta man
bringing him all of my fleshy self & some of my pleasure
being taken full eager wet like I get sometimes
I was missing something
a laying on of hands
not a man
laying on
not my mama/holding me tight/saying
I’m always gonna be her girl
not a laying on of bosom and womb
a laying on of hands
the holiness of myself released

I sat up one nite walking a boarding house
screaming/crying/the ghost of another woman
who was missing what I was missing
I wanted to jump up outta my bones
& be done with myself
leave me alone
& go on in the wind
it was too much
I fell into a numbness
til the only tree I cd see
took me up in her branches
held me in the breeze
made me dawn dew
that chill at daybreak
the sun wrapped me up swinging rose light everywhere
the sky laid over me like a million men
I was cold/I was burning up/a child
& endlessly weaving garments for the moon
with my tears
I found god in myself
& I loved her/I loved her fiercely”

She said some other things. Playful things. Jazzy things. Sassy things. Impossibly beautiful things that no one had ever said the way she said them.

She was easily the poet my middle and high school sistah students loved most, possibly most of all for saying this, in a way they all wished they could — loved to perform it, hands on hips:

“without any assistance or guidance from you
i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day
i have been stood up four times
i’ve left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left
town so i cd send to you have been no help to me
on my job
you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays
so i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work
charmin charmin
but you are of no assistance
i want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see how selifsh i cd be
if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i cd stand not being wanted
when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair

this note is attached to a plant
i’ve been waterin since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self”

Oh, yes. She taught us how to love and express ourselves fiercely.

And now that I’ve given you a taste, please go here or to Amazon — or the library or your favorite bookstore — and read lots, lots more.

She died on a day when her death may go largely unnoticed. Save by a whole lot of us “colored girls,” for whom her voice will never be stilled.

Her chosen name meant “she who has her own things.” She helped me find mine, too.

Sistah Shange, I celebrate you…