2021
POETRY OPEN
Second Prize
$100 Award
EYES (circa 1990)
by Beatrice Kujichagulia Greene
She sat everyday
in front of the Lenox Hotel
in lotus pose on a blanket.
I noticed her long, thin arms
bare during warmer weather,
her wrinkled but clean apparel.
Her brunette hair, long, stringy
framed a ruddy, oval
much younger than me
white woman’s face.
She did not speak, held no cup,
nor outstretched hand
her gaze cycled from
empty to sad to peaceful.
More than one passerby told me
she, a college grad, once worked for a
large Boston publishing house.
What happened? Had she strived
to be perfect for old men in suits
working longer hours
using yet hiding her intellect
to battle in-house mind games?
As she sat on that blanket
I knew she could be me.
One day, when I reached out my hand
to give her dollar bills
her eyes became mine, her face mine.
Then hers returned to her as
her irises brightened
and she said “Thank you.”
Beatrice Kujichagulia Greene was born to African American parents in the South Bronx. Her poems have appeared in The Bones We Carry, Writers Without Margins, the Lunar Calendar and exhibitions at City Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.
In a production she created about the life of Frances Harper, Black woman, abolitionist and poet, she incorporates historic, biographic highlights as well as music between dramatic readings of Harper’s works.
Her piano compositions include Spirit Warriors commissioned by the United Nations Reporting Network and The Other commissioned by Violence Transformed, a local Boston organization. Beatrice has received degrees in philosophy, law and music.