Alice Walker: "Before I Leave the Stage"

Before I leave the stage
I will sing the only song
I was meant truly to sing.

It is the song
of I AM.
Yes: I am Me
&
You.
WE ARE.

I love Us with every drop
of our blood
every atom of our cells
our waving particles
—undaunted flags of our Being—
neither here nor there.



"Before I Leave the Stage" by Alice Walker, from The World Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness into Flowers (New Poems) (New Press, 2013).

 Art credit: "After the Show," photograph by Garrett Crawford.