Sidney Clifton
“they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine.”
—Lucille Clifton
Buffalo, 1964 or 5.
“Go to sleepy, little baby, go to sleepy little baby,
when you wake, we’ll patty, patty-cake,
and ride a shiny little pony.”
Mommy is rocking me back to sleep after a bad dream. She is silhouetted against the night light and her voice is honey, but I know she is tired. I’m 5 (or 6) and she has 5 (or 6) children.
I remember her laugh; her calling our names, her fear her wicked humor her cute-and-devilish smile her sorrow her admonition “now, Siddy…”. Remember her growing stronger in her written voice, more and more writing; her Black woman confidence louder and resonant. Her rising and shining from “Fred and Lue” to “Lucille Clifton” and a million other things. But always what remains consistent and crystal clear is her voice.
Mom’s literal and figurative voice has always been the hand at my back.
Baltimore, 1969 or 70.
Mom’s voice, purring through good times while searching her history to understand, “What does this mean?” Her first book is in her hand. (Yes! this is real!) Her poems are real, were always real, and now there is evidence. Her mama’s words are redeemed, and never again will poems be burned for any husband’s sake.
Her voice echoing through our home on Talbot Road. The home where her voice was finally heard, and her vision witnessed. Her testimonies affirmed. Her spirit flowering.
Her flowering looked like typewriter meditation. Sounded like clacking keys and heartbeat rhythms. Her voice was multidimensional in those days. I remember marveling at the magic of it.
Her profile at the dining room table; eyes down focused on the keyboard as she channels her vision-voice onto the page. She is quiet, deep in active meditation that looks like alchemy. When she emerges, she asks to read the poems to me; checking every line, break, word, comma, period for rightness. Once a poem is birthed, it must be inspected; we count and check its poetic fingers and toes. What color are its eyes? Is it responding to our voice? When we are satisfied with its rightness, we nod and smile. Then our job is to keep it alive.
What I learned was this:
We are responsible for freeing our voices
Our voices resound when we do the work
The work is done in silence
Silence births our visions and voices
Voices and visions are magic
Magic is an adjective and a verb
Baltimore 1973 or 4.
“Fred and Lue” are fading and “Lucille Clifton” has emerged. Dad was equally proud and unnerved by it. Lue supported her husband always in all ways despite her fears and intuitions; but to my 14-year-old eyes, Dad was afraid of Lucille Clifton. Who was she? What had she done to Lue?
What I learned was this:
We are responsible for freeing our voices
Our voices resound when we do the work
The work is done in silence
Silence births our visions and voices
Voices and visions are magic
Magic is an adjective and a verb
Not everyone will be ready
Magic anyway
And she did. Mom’s poems soared from her manual typewriter through her IBM Selectric II to good news about the earth and good woman. Her poeming was silent but her poems thundered.
Through this evolution, our house remained a sanctuary; a righteous womb nurturing artists and activists; truthtellers and revolutionaries. No one was turned away if they stepped to us right. No one who stepped off incorrectly did so twice. Mom and Dad’s metaphysical combination healed the sick and straightened out the crooked. There was historical, hysterical, freedom-inducing magic in that house.
But the creative miracles couldn’t stop the business at hand. Mom and Dad lost the house to foreclosure, and as Mom admitted to a close family friend, “our family never recovered from the loss of our house.”
Baltimore, February 2010.
Johns Hopkins University Hospital. Mommy is dying. A young woman passes by Mom’s bed, where my sisters and I stand vigil. “Is that Lucille Clifton?” she asks. I nod. She says, “I heard her speak at my school a few years ago, and I loved her and her work. It’s an honor to meet you.” I nod again, gracious through tears, the way we were taught. Mom has been unresponsive for two days, but her voice is clear. We are to be gracious, even in this.
When the cardiac monitor starts slowing, we know. We move aside quickly to let the doctors work what we hoped would be magic, and holding hands we call: “We’re right here, Mommy, You’re okay! We love you, Mommy! Thank you, Mommy! We love you, Mommy! You’ve fought so hard, Mommy, it’s ok to go! We love you so much, Mommy! We’re right here, Mommy! It’s ok! We’re ok!”
The doctor performs CPR, her counting strong and steady. “One time,” we said. “If you can’t bring her back after one round, then we will let her go.“
And even now, we hear her voice:
i seemed to be drawn
to the center of myself….
“You’re ok! We’re ok! You’re ok! We’re ok!”
leaving the edges of me
in the hands of my wife
“We love you, Mommy!”
and i saw with the most amazing
clarity
so that i had not eyes but
sight,
“You’re ok! We’re ok!”
and, rising and turning
through my skin,
“We love you, Mommy!”
there was all around not the
shapes of things
“You’re ok! We’re ok!”
but oh, at last, the things
themselves….
“Mommy!”
And then she is gone.
Baltimore, February 13, 2019.
The nine-year anniversary of Mom’s death. In a moment of morning silence, I heed the inner call to reach out to the owner of our Baltimore home to check the status. The previous fall, she’d mentioned she was preparing the house for sale, but that news didn’t resonate. She confirms that the house went on the market that day. I am stunned. Against everything I understood to be facts, I instead listened to vision and voice. Walked through fire, braved the storms, macheted my way through uncharted territory. And bought the house.
What I learned was this:
We are responsible for freeing our voices
Our voices resound when we do the work
The work is done in silence
Silence births our visions and voices
Voices and visions are magic
Magic is an adjective and a verb
Magic is hard work
Not everyone will understand
Not everyone will be happy
Magic anyway
Baltimore, starting now.
Reclaiming my childhood home has been a magic and freedom I am not yet able to describe. What I know is that my siblings and I still hear Mom’s voice.
Mom’s magic is still alive within those walls.
In reclaiming our home, I reclaim our legacy of place.
Her legacy will continue within those walls as I nurture and birth The Clifton House, a live-work space and writer’s/artist’s retreat, housing programs designed to provide emerging and established writers and artists with a sanctuary where their unique voices can be birthed, reclaimed and heard. The process is hard work, but voice and vision and her hand at my back keep me moving forward.
What I am learning is this:
We are responsible for freeing our voices
Our voices resound when we do the work
The work is done in silence
Silence births our visions and voices
Voices and visions are magic
Magic is an adjective and a verb
Magic is hard work
Not everyone will understand
Not everyone will be happy
Not everyone will share the vision
Magic anyway
Magic anyway
Magic
Sidney Clifton
12-31-19
Works Cited
Lucille Clifton, “the death of fred clifton,” The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965-2010 (Rochester, NY: BOA, 2012).
Lucille Clifton, “why some people be mad at me sometimes,” The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965-2010 (Rochester, NY: BOA, 2012).
“the death of fred clifton” and “why some people be mad at me sometimes” printed with permission of Sidney Clifton.
Sidney Clifton
Emmy-nominated producer Sidney Clifton has over twenty years of experience as an executive producer, producer, casting director, voice director, and creative development executive in animated and live-action content across multiple platforms. In her career to date, Ms. Clifton has worked with artists and creators including comic book legend Stan Lee, Dr. Maya Angelou, Ringo Starr, BB King, comedian Jeff Dunham, Tyler Perry, Leann Rimes, Naomi Judd, and Harry Connick, Jr. Her credits include Celebration Table with Maya Angelou; Tripping the Rift; Stan Lee’s The Condor; Hellboy: Sword of Storms; Rob Zombie’s The Haunted Movie of El Superbeasto; Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Tough Love; Me, Eloise; and BET’S animated series Marvel’s Black Panther. She currently serves as Executive Producer at Deluxe Animation Studios, Series Producer at The Jim Henson Company, and as a Senior Consultant with Black Women Animate. As a mentor and recruiter, she has been a featured speaker at colleges and universities across North America, including California Institute of the Arts, Pratt Institute, Maryland Institute of Arts, NYU-Tisch, Sheridan College, Savannah College Art and Design, George Mason University, and Ringling College of Art & Design. Ms. Clifton’s passion for developing and supporting the underserved community of writers, artists, storytellers, and creators was the catalyst for her launching The Clifton House, a writer’s and artist’s workshop and retreat space centered at her childhood home in Baltimore Maryland—the home she shared with her five siblings and parents, educator/activist Fred J. Clifton and National Book Award winning poet and author Lucille Clifton.