busy writing, publishing, building foundations and networks
to employ future generations, while changing the society we knew,
we were oblivious and unprepared when in the mid-’80s
a devastating and unexplained phenomena struck, eventually called AIDS
like new homeowners watching a whirlwind tornado
destroy dreams of home, camaraderie, and friendship
Like the recent Black populous of Katrina and Haiti
through hurricanes and earthquakes
saw pillars, foundations, and platforms they’d built washed away
but in our generation it was young Black men who like babies
or children had just begun to articulate, voice thoughts, ideas and desires
that never in the world’s history been spoken,
dying as soon as, moments of, or seconds after
pressing pen to paper.
These were early days, AIDS in its infancy,
before the medical establishment invented drug cocktails
providing life support and badly needed medicine
without which men could and did die within weeks, months of, or
shortly after diagnosis.
At this time, as in the ’40s during World War II
when men enlisted, went abroad to become soldiers,
while women at home were drafted into the work force and professional realm,
took on untraditional roles as welders and electricians
like banks but instead lent limbs, additional hands, and
the occasional missing shoulder.
Because of my stature, writing, outlandish outfits, and flair for the
dramatic
I became a known and requested presence operating throughout the crisis
as an unofficially titled, “funeral diva,” called for
at memorials, readings, wakes and funerals to speak
give testimony and credence to men’s lives
even if they were not family members or close friends
like a job which requires at such sudden, rapid and rising death tolls
quick thinking
like wordsmiths who can articulate at mathematic speed,
capture within hair’s breath, bottle the essence,
execute like marksmen small and mundane details,
all the while like members of the clergy or great actors having the ability
to accurately portray and pay homage to the spirit of someone
who’d lived only for a short time on this planet.
Armed with only a few pre-requisite experiences:
As an adopted and only child, weathering my parents’ divorce
Later, a beloved grandmother, my shelter and protector
devoured by cancer
turned from a robust brown woman to a small gray thing
who could not recognize me
At the funeral, in tribute each of my cousins wore the feathered and veiled hats
of her favorite church collection.
At the memorial for Craig Harris poet, activist, and soldier
I was prepared.
Craig worked tirelessly on the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic at GMHC,
Gay Men’s Health Crisis,
But in off hours between battling KS and pneumonia
and trips to the hospital,
he drank champagne and smoked long Virginia Slim cigarettes,
famous for the slogan aimed at women and their transition from skirts to pants
announcing on billboards “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
A true rebel and pioneer Craig vowed in one of his poems about AIDS
Not to succumb gently, but defiantly, insisted, like a generational star
“I will go out like a fucking meteor.”
For his work at GMHC, Craig talked passionately about AIDS work
in Harlem at a time when illness and gayness was taboo.
To those who would oppose and refute him, he said humorously
“Honey, I’ve got a few bricks in my pocketbook which I’m not afraid
to throw.”
Later at a memorial and tribute to Black lesbian poet Pat Parker
who died of cancer
Craig asked in vigilance, way ahead of his time,
acknowledging women in a voice resounding over the auditorium
at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center on 13th Street, in a poem about
the massive casualties of AIDS and those left behind,
“Who will care for our caretakers?”
a question that still resonates today as I think of Black women poets
whose words like hands, shoulders, arms were used to uplift
whose eyes like stars in darkness provided vision
led us like runaways to freedom
whose poems, songs, and spirits were used to eulogize,
bury dead,
make sense of senseless tragedy.
They were teachers, nurses, soldiers, working long hours
mostly without vacation or pension plans, retirement or a leave of absence
like Harriet Tubman who provided years of service
to Union soldiers and received little pay, walked away empty
like soldiers returning now from Afghanistan and Iraq without services or beds
to sleep on.
Many died silent invisible deaths from cancer with no one to care.
These were the women Craig spoke of when he asked,
“Who will care for our caretakers?”
After a long ferocious battle with AIDS, like a gladiator
or Viking warrior made famous by Kirk Douglas, Craig did succumb.
At the memorial as tribute similar to when my grandmother died
I wore a large circular hat with swirling orange and blue circles
reminiscent of a ’40s, ’50s style movie star diva
Craig loved and emulated.
For Rory Buchannan, a poet and activist, who juggled many roles,
as a father to a teenage son while holding down a full-time job,
was also a member of Other Countries and GMAD, Gay Men of African Descent,
at the wake, I had no words to express my love and gratitude towards him
for hours we spent like musicians and secretaries at keyboards typing
my first poems, then his own and organizing them into respective chapbooks.
We sat in his living room one afternoon making up famous quotes for
our book covers, comparing ourselves humorously with stars of the time
like Audre Lorde.
Rory was spiritual and when first diagnosed with HIV, he believed herbs
could heal him.
In the kitchen, there was a crockpot with warm smells emanating
all day through the house.
Death’s swiftness caused in all of us, such accelerated
insight and poetic gems
lines from Rory’s poem still play over and over in my head
like an old 45
“I stopped looking for Mr. Right when I found out I was him.”
At his memorial, like bottles of fine wine broken open to celebrate
between friends, I read a poem of mine that he loved when
I rewrote the story of Rapunzel and portrayed her not
as a blond woman pining for Prince Charming
but as a liberated Black woman with dreadlocks.
“That castle,” I said, “was the love she and the wicked witch built,
and she did not need any rescuing.”
In closure, I imitated the way I’d seen my grandfather and grandmother
and church elders use bible quotes, but instead I used the refrain
of an old R&B classic and vowed like a younger sister gazing up
at a protective older brother in reverence I sang
imitating the voice of the great baritone of the late soul singer Barry White
“No matter how
