Chasing Utopia by Nikki Giovanni Page B

later realized, flirting with me. I didn’t understand it then because I didn’t know that I was pretty. I was 16.
    I passed the test. Never graduated from high school. Went to Fisk. Got kicked out. Failed. Then learned failure is as important as success. I still don’t ask many questions. But I do try to pay attention.

IF A LEMON
    If a lemon
    Kissed a beet
    Is it sour
    Or is it sweet
    If a bear
    Gives
    A hug
    Will it turn
    Into a rug
    And then there’s me
    And there is you
    I do sometimes wonder
    What will we do

PODCAST FOR BICYCLES
    I loved before
    I understood;
    Love is a skill
    I loved my Mother’s cool hands
    On my forehead
    I loved the safety
    Of her arms
    I trusted
    Before I understood
    The word
    Mommy would say
    When I had fallen:
    â€œCome here, Nikki,
    and I’ll pick you up”
    and I would wipe my eyes
    push myself off my fat bottom
    and tottle over to her
    for my reward:
    a kiss and a “That’s my Big Girl!”
    I am still a sucker
    For that one
    But I grew up
    And learned
    Trust and love
    Are crafts we practice
    Are wheels
    We balance
    Our lives on
    Are BICYCLES
    We ride
    Through challenges and changes
    To escape and ecstasy

WHY I WROTE
THE GRASSHOPPER’S SONG
    My grandfather was twenty years older than my grandmother so he was an old man when we, the grandchildren, met him. He didn’t seem all that old and he was a very patient man but he didn’t hang out and laugh with us the way Grandmother did. We cooked with Grandmother and did chores. Grandpapa attended to the grocery chores and cut the grass. He was also a Deacon at our church, Mt. Zion Baptist Church. He seemed formidable.
    For whatever the reason he liked me. He liked my younger cousin, Terry, also calling him Terry the Brick. He would on his deathbed charge Terry with “take care of the women.” Which Terry has done.
    I am the only grandchild to live with them. During the Age of Segregation I went back to Knoxville, the place of my birth, and lived with my grandparents and attended Austin High School.
    But before all that we four, my older sister, Gary, and Terry and his older brother, William, spent summers in Knoxville. The two boys, being boys, were up early, breakfasted, and off to the playground or the park or swimming or whatever it is boys do until lunch when they are famished, then off again. My sister liked to cook so she and Grandmother would huddle in the kitchen baking wonderful things. Me . . . I was set adrift. I would, some days, ask Grandmother if I could go to the library which was at the top of our street, Mulvaney. I always enjoyed dusting, it was my chore at home, so some days I would dust then read something from Grandmother’s library. Grandmother wanted to teach me to play the piano but I was too dumb to know that one day I would wish she had.
    I guess Grandpapa noticed that I was by myself a lot.
    He would call me over to read an Aesop Fable or to teach me a Latin verb. I guess he wanted to make me feel needed or interesting or something. In the evenings before there was so much neon that the stars were blotted out, he would invite me to walk with him and he would point out the stars to me, guiding me on a journey through the Underground Railroad. He was a good storyteller and a great teacher. But I was always disturbed by a couple of the Aesop Fables. I didn’t like the way the “Mice in Council” ended. It seemed someone should be brave enough and courageous enough to bell that cat even if a supreme sacrifice had to be made. What little bit of history I was learning showed there is always a hero or heroine in the case of Jeanne d’Arc or Harriet Tubman who risked it all for freedom and justice. As I was older I added Rosa Parks to that list and Daisy Bates. I was particularly angry about “The Grasshopper and the Ants.”
    Grandpapa was always on the side of the Ants. He thought the Grasshopper should have saved up for a “rainy