Table of Contents
Introduction xv
A Note about the Translator Alice Walker xix
Translating Alice Walker: A Work of Intellectual and Spiritual Growth xxiii
The Long Road Home 3
Breathing 5
Here It Is! 7
The New Dark Ages 9
Loving Oakland 13
Is Celie Actually Ugly? 19
The World Is Standing Up for Palestine 23
Wherever You Are Grieving 27
To Have Once 29
They Will Always Be More Beautiful Than You 33
Imagine 37
Refugees 43
The World Rising 47
Lodestar 49
Ancestors Never Sleep 51
Especially to the Toddlers of Iran (and Other Countries) and Those Just Learning to Ride Bikes 55
The Future Captured in a Heartless Fist 57
Julian 61
The Dancing Shack 67
The Circle 71
The King Has Gone Away for Good: Long Live the King! 75
Welcome to the Picnic 81
The Lesson 85
All the Fast Car Ads Look Crazy Now 87
Light a Candle 91
My 12-12-12 93
And in the Red Box 101
You Were Sixteen 103
Fullness of Heart 105
Aloisea Inyumba, Presente 109
I Confess I Do Not Understand the Mind That Needs to Cause This Suffering 117
Not from Here 119
I Am Telling You, Discouraged One, We Will Win 125
We Are Never Without Help 129
The Good Ones 131
What Does It Take to Be Happy? 135
Later We Would Miss You So Much 137
Necks of Clay 147
Who the Annunaki Saw? 149
Inner Landscape 153
Hope Is a Woman Who Has Lost Her Fear 159
Sweet People Are Everywhere 163
And When They Spy on Us 169
Confident Anticipation of Joy 173
The Mother of Trees 177
Never Pass Up an Opportunity to Kiss 181
The Iron Age, the Age of Sorrow 185
When a Poet Dies 187
The Language of Bombs 189
Talking to Hamas 193
Don't Give Up (Beautiful Child, Other Self) 199
Gather 203
Making Frittatas 209
At the Door of Pollsmoor Prison 211
Burnt Offerings 215
A Blessing 219
The Prize Itself 221
To the Po'lice 223
Depopulation Blues 227
Depopulation Blues #2 229
What Is to Be Done? Who Is to Do It? 231
Banning Cruelty 235
The Energy of the Wave 237
I Believe the Women 241
The Slain Children of Palestine Hold Council in Paradise 245
Mongers of War 249
To Win 253
Morning in the Village 255
Taking My Seat 259
