I didn’t think that I would have occasion to write about Lauryn Hill on this blog. Yet I was sad to hear the news that Hill has been charged for not filing taxes on her income for three years. It is a true tragedy that she is likely to face a significant amount of time in prison in addition to having to pay a hefty fine. Behind bars, she would be part of the fastest growing group of prisoners in America: black women. I sincerely hope that it doesn’t come to that.

Over the past few years, when I have thought of Hill, a Carolyn Rogers poem has been the accompanying soundtrack. The poem is titled “Poem for Some Black Women (1981).”

i am lonely
all the people i know
i know too well

there was comfort in that
at first but now
we know each others miseries
too well.
we are
lonely women, who spend time waiting for
occasional flings

we live with fear.
we are lonely.
we are talented, dedicated, well read
BLACK, COMMITTED.

we are lonely.

we understand the world problems
Black women’s problems with Black men
but all
we really understand is
lonely.

when we laugh,
we are so happy to laugh
we cry when we laugh
we are lonely.
we are busy people
always doing things
fearing getting trapped in rooms
loud with empty…
yet
knowing the music of silence/hating it/hoarding it
loving it/treasuring it,
it often birthing our creativity
we are lonely
being soft and being hard
supporting our selves, earning our own bread
soft/hard/hard/soft/
knowing that need must not show
will frighten away
knowing that we must
walk back-wards nonchalantly on our tip-toesssss
into
happiness,
if only for stingy moments

we know too much
we learn to understand everything,
to make too much sense out
of the world,
of pain
of lonely…

we buy clothes, we take trips,
we wish, we pray, we meditate, we curse, we crave, we coo, we caw,

we need ourselves sick, we need, we need,
we lonely, we grow tired of tears we grow tired of fear
we grow tired but must al-ways be soft and not too serious…

not too smart not too bitchy not too sapphire
not too dumb not too not too not too
a little less a little more

add here detract here
.lonely.

My favorite song of hers is Zion about her son. I send a prayer out that she finds some peace in the world…