Somewhere in all the movement
I set down the megaphone,
Still hearing the echo of my own voice
As it traveled
North, East, South, West,
On to, up and down Main street;
Social leaders don’t choose
the precise moment
When they thus become
Leaders,
“Accidental” leadership
–The moment chooses them;
Nor do they choose
Exactly when
their time eclipses;
Social injustice
Is a warfare,
Literal,
and of daily heartbreak;
The activist by Call
Resides on this ground zero,
Tending, carrying, soothing and rallying,
In rotation
With other ethical co-conspirators,
A Rotation
To protect the already traumatized
From too
Too much;
Gradually, I took my leave
When the marches thinned,
And logistics began
to overshadow the purpose;
The march marches on
In different capacities,
As it has always,
My prayer is that our call
And the response
Forever is remembered,
re-called,
And flesh tones
Like and unlike mine
find purpose, place, and responsibility still
In the movement
Of heart,
Of calling out injustice
invoking community love,
And keeping the justice system
In check
With a social justice
Call
And response;
A leader still,
My call
Is a labor of love,
unending
A different hat I will wear for now,
As I heal and grow,
An injustice-weary heart.
Tag: Civil rights
Teeth
My body
Is my own.
I need not explain why
I have said “No”
To your assertions on it.
It is my own;
it is my only.
My emotions too
Are my own.
And they are valid.
“Calm down!”
“What’s your problem?”
“Hysteria!”
“Women!”
–It’s all the same misogynistic logic;
Lies fed generation to generation
to ignore reality
of the Other, of the feminine.
Poke a sleeping dog
–A bitch,
And see how many times that works,
Before you see
the teeth.
Dream On, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2020
This day of remembrance,
Year Two-Thousand-Twenty,
I wonder if Dr. King knew where we would be?
Would he have imagined a past black president?
The rise of fascism?
Renewed imperialism?
And neo-nazis?
Would he have imagined innocents in cages,
At our nation’s borders?
The threat of another new war?
Would he have imagined? …
I am sure he could have imagined,
But he also would imagine the struggle,
To rise up against hatred and bigotry,
To aim for the “beloved community”
He knew was perpetually in the distance,
It was always a dream,
A dream you can’t quite touch,
But a dream you can’t take away,
With bullets and bombs,
A dream can be reimagined, shared, Reinvigorated,
A dream you can keep dreaming,
If you have the will,
A dream is like a virus,
Inspiring it can spread, and spread,
And take hold of the system,
If not now, then when?
Our dream was his dream,
A dream reimagined,
A dream for our time,
A dream when black lives matter, unquestioned, undoubted,
A dream when immigrants, refugees are free,
And find promised land in the arms of their brethren,
A dream when brutality is not from our law enforced protectors,
A dream when “-isms” are not blind,
And don’t exist at all,
A dream when new divisions are not erected to substitute the old,
A dream we all feel the need to dream;
dream on.
Descendants
Do right,
Do what your ancestors couldn’t
Wouldn’t,
Wouldn’t fathom,
It would make your descendants
proud
“We Are All the Same”
We want to say
“We are all the same,”
And believe it with our core,
It’s the message we were taught from cut and pasted MLK,
We don’t see the whole picture
If we close our eyes and assert the truth of our sameness,
But are we all the same?
Not in experience,
I cannot say I’ve lived a day in your shoes,
To appreciate how life is as you,
Human, sentient, even then variation makes our experiences
Different,
Location, soci political climate,
Characteristics that dictate our place in it,
Social qualifiers that mark our skin, our minds, our bodies, our heritage,
And the histories behind them,
Must not be glossed over,
It must be worked through,
Recognized,
To see the truth beneath,
And the real meaning meant
Of “we are all the same”.
Privileges
Some can say
“I don’t
Want to
hear it,
See it,
be reminded,
Think about things outside
Of my control”,
“I am comfortable here”,
In ignorant complacency,
Not thinking from another’s point of view,
“This is my space”,
Of chosen apathy,
“I can sugar coat,
Pick and choose
what I subject my mind to”,
Some can forget,
Can remain ignorant,
Can be the fish that swim
Never aware that there is water,
That is their privilege at play,
But I cannot
Remain blind,
My multiple identities remind me every day,
And being aware is my burden,
And I know
I have privileges too,
But I count being awake
As one of them
She of Letters 