"Take all you want, but eat all you take."

Who polished you?

On the Beach (1935 - 1943) by Victor Laredo (American, 20th Century), from the Black is Beautiful collection at Public Domain Review

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Momma Sayings

by Harryette Mullen

Momma had words for us:
We were "crumb crushers,"
"eating machines,"
"bottomless pits."
She made us charter members
of the bonepickers’ club,
saying, "Just don't let your eyes
get bigger than your stomachs."
Saying, "Take all you want,
but eat all you take."
Saying, “I'm not made of money, you know,
and the man at the Safeway
don't give away groceries for free."
She trained us not to leave lights on
“all over the house,"
because "electricity costs money –
so please turn the light off when you leave a room
and take the white man’s hand out of my pocket."

When we were small
she called our feet "ant mashers,”
but when we'd outgrow our shoes,
our feet became "platforms."
She told us we must be growing big feet
to support some big heavyset women
(like our grandma Tiddly).

When she had to buy us new underwear
to replace the old ones full of holes,
she'd swear we were growing razor blades in our behinds,
"you tear these drawers up so fast."

Momma had words for us, alright:
She called us "the wrecking crew."
She said our untidy bedroom
looked like "a cyclone struck it."

Our dirty fingernails she called "victory gardens."
And when we'd come in from playing outside
she'd tell us, "You smell like iron rust."
She'd say, "Go take a bath
and get some of that funk off or you."
But when the water ran too long in the tub
she'd yell "That's enough water to wash an elephant."
And after the bath she'd say,
"Be sure and grease those ashy legs."
She'd lemon-creme our elbows
and pull the hot comb
through "these tough kinks on your head."

Momma had lots of words for us,
her never quite perfect daughters,
the two brown pennies
she wanted to polish
so we'd shine like dimes.


by Harryette Mullen from In Search Of Color Everywhere A Collection Of African-American Poetry, edited by E. Ethelbert Miller. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc., 1994.

Free middle grades 10-lesson curriculum unit on 21st century African American poetry

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Creative Invitation

I often think, as I’m looking up a recipe online or a Youtube video about how to repair an appliance, that this cultural shift did us dirty. We would have asked our loved ones for the recipe or method before the internet, and that would be so different. Sometimes I do just call someone who can tell me how to do it. There’s so much more communicated with the advice or instructions. Love, time, affection, humor, presence. How they are, how I am, how the faucet is.

Who taught you how to do things?
Who did you teach how to do things?
Simple or complicated things?

Think of a significant relative or teacher in your life whose words still ring inside you. Who helped you shine, grow, change course? Who were they when they weren’t with you? What did they tell you, teach you?

*

This weekend, my beloved 17-year old goddaughter got alcohol poisoning at an outdoor concert. Some adult strangers handed she and her best friend a bottle of straight vodka, egging them on to drink it down. She became impaired, unconscious, and another stranger put her and her friend in the bed of his pickup truck and brought her to the ER. Oh, this could have been worse. Lord, I’m grateful.

Her dad called at midnight from the ER, and I went to stay with her overnight. Her blood alcohol level was .36 at its highest; .32 when I arrived. At .4, alcohol saturation is often fatal. She recovered in 12 hours, thanks to massive IV infusions of saline, hilarious nurses and quite a lot of vomiting. She is alright.

As I sat while the sun came up, and she started rousing, her sisters were texting me that she needed to be grounded. But I didn’t want to teach her anything—life was doing that just fine. We cozied up to watch Ponyo, my favorite movie of magical children in a hand-drawn, Japanese oceanic wonderworld. I found myself reciting lines of the movie out loud along with the dialogue, particularly the words of the stern mother as she tells her 5-year old son to hurry up to get ready; to come out of the ocean; to eat.

That put me in mind of “Momma Sayings” by Haryette Mullen—a poem full of vexation, advice and love. Full of the details of culture, class, economy; a poem that hangs on like a strong childhood memory.

Who polished you, or didn’t polish you, and how?