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A Sister Speaks
It took years to find this place
To be woman awesome like love's luscious clutches
To float on air without wings
To stand for a doctrine
Without validated views
To not wither without water
And know that survival is selective.
This has been part of the journey.
To separate social acceptance
From the wretched road unguarded
By the masses that embrace conformity
Like a grandmother's outstretched arms.
It has taken years
To mold this mess of a woman
Into a mountain of miracles
Like healing waters of ancient times.
I have become and I am still becoming
This beautiful and terrible thing called woman;
Independent, indestructible, and immovable,
Fiercely flaming like a fiery furnace
That seeks to singe my starving soul
And so becoming is a pilgrimage
Into the path of persistence and privilege/
To be the woman I am today
To be the woman who must fight
To flourish tomorrow
To mend the broken bits
Of precious promises made
To millions of weary women everywhere
By countless centuries
Of unutterable unified voices,
Dangling on dreams of fragile freedom.
It took years to find this place.
Tragic Black Kings
Out of their need to belong
They demand nothing of themselves.
Those forty-ounce drinking misguided black kings do not even
know
Their own beauty.
They search for meaning in tangled vines of ancient weeds,
Crack-stone, crystal pebbles
And pea-tasting liquor
That makes their eyes water
With luxuriant tears,
Cutting off their child-bearing seeds in the richness of their
Youthful years.
Never thinking of the generations of black princes who will never
know
How great black royalty really is.
The hope of a generation flushed away in a moment,
Floating downstream.
Broken Spirit
She sees another star fade before her crystal eyes.
Another dream floating away on the wings of her heart.
Another need being forced back into her intestines
And flushed out with her bowels.
She cannot dance anymore
Because the music is not calling her.
She screams for the night time where the richness of rain
And thunderstorms
Beckon her into deep tunnels of sleepless nights.
She is bark drifting downstream.
Her spirit is broken like the wings of a wounded bird.
Where is her signature in a world where she is the star
Of her morning?
Where is the composer to write her music? To sing her songs of
glory?
Where is the glue to piece her spirit back together again?
She can no longer write her story nor sing her song,
For she is afraid. Afraid of a moving world that is leaving
her behind. |
Revelations
Time just caught a jet plane.
Today this woman turned 40.
There is no looking back at years lost;
And harboring hate from yesteryear
Is a misuse of this woman's fresh spirit,
Fresh time and fresh vision.
And once I had awakened from that youthful an idiotic sleep
I realized the beauty of the fall
Would not last forever
In a closed heart where no love lives
And it's best to let leaves fall
Where they may because someday innocence
Will awaken and rake up the dead leaves
That once floated gracefully likes ballerinas
And their dance will end.
And winter will wrestle its way
Into the life of the living
Bringing death and ice.
For I must make my own warmth
Within when winter comes-it cares
Not if I sleep blanketless against the cold
Or warmly under handmade African quilts.
It will still come and claim its season
With forceful storms and snowy days
And time will not take notice
Of those who slept away the cold days of earth
Or those who soaked up summer eves,
For time like death, will sneak up
And steal this woman's hours of life.
Lovers
The wet grass caresses her bronzed barefeet.
Above her head looms the turquoise sky,
As she stands watering her garden.
There is sunshine in her morning smile.
Gently, he brings her a robe
Wrapping it lovingly around
Her delicate shoulders;
She kisses his boyish brown cheeks and says,
"This is why I married you."
The smell of coffee floats through the air,
Causing her to remember that she forgot
To cut off the pot
That's trembling beneath the fire.
She reaches for two black
Designer mugs from the cupboard,
And tenderly he wraps his arms
Around her growing belly;
A new life blooming within her
Surely to bring them even closer.
She pours two steaming cups of morning time
Spilling some on to the newly waxed parquet floors.
They laugh, reminding us that they are newlyweds,
Abundantly in love…with life…with each other…
With success.
An exuberant, fresh and forceful love,
Waiting to test its backbone
With each unpleasant life experience.
But for now, they are loving and learning
And glowing in the daybreak breeze
Under the sunlit sky, silently,
Rejoicing in their renewed faith,
And knowing that life does not always
Have to throw you a naked bone.
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