Book Meme

Amy tagged me. Here are the rules:

1. Go to the nearest book in your reach and turn to page 123.
2. Go to the fifth sentence of the book.
3. Copy the next three sentences, then tag someone else.

I will attempt to tag Laurelin, though I don't know that she reads me. In fact, I don't know of anyone who is checking my blog lately--except you, Amy. That's the price I pay for staying away, and for not saying much. But I will find my voice!

Here's my meme: The nearest book was Audre Lorde's The Black Unicorn, but there IS no page 123. So my next choice is

Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New, rev. ed., also by Audre Lorde.

Page 123 contains a poem. Here it is in its entirety; I post it for Uta.

Mentor

Scaling your words like crags I found
silence
speaking
in a mouthful of sun
yet I say you are young
for your lips are not stone
to the rain's fall
I say you are lovely to speak
in a mouthful of sun
nor does summer await you.

I see the midnight
heavy as windows sealed against fire
and tears coiled like snakes
in your eyes
I see your forehead like snow
and the names of so many winters
your fingers play over
plucking out rays of light
to anoint me home;

Yet I say you are young
and your lips are not stone
to be weathered
rather a song
learned when my aprils were fallow.
I sing this for beacon
lighting us home
each to our separate house.

(1959) -- Audre Lorde