The creaking of the porch swing brings me back,
Back
And forth,
My brown limbs outstretch to power the rocking
And I feel the air brush against them,
Like when I was small
And my legs dangled from a sun-bleached wooden swing
That like my maternal grandparents
I wish were still here today,
This was their house,
The rural abode
Where I, their first grandchild,
And a then newly dubbed city-kid, would return
Again and again,
With memory of toddlerhood here,
Running,
With chubby caramel-colored baby legs
Sitting in and exploring , and feeling the fresh cut green grass,
on this same land;
This was my first home
It always will be,
It was where my mother carried me in body,
Herself breathing in country air,
In this her family home,
It is where I swing now,
With a new bench beneath me,
And older, lengthened tan legs
moving me,
Back and forth,
Still I have always been
Between places,
In movement,
Like this swing,
And that is what I aim still to do,
To swing back between here,
Pennsylvania,
And my New England home of familiarity;
Between the two places
Distinct accents call me back,
And forth,
incantations to return again
And again,
The swing with its own creaking accent calms me
And keeps me in place for now,
Both driven and pulled by nostalgia
While I figure out best laid plans
To be
In each beloved place,
In each their own time.
Tag: culture
Movement of My Feet
I often see, hear, and feel hints around me,
Of the ancestral homeland I have never met,
But know of
From the people, stories, and the traditions
Passed on;
Much woven into my DNA,
Evident
In the rhythm of my hips
And movement of my feet
With steps I knew
From childhood,
When encircled by elders
–Dark brown clapping hands ushered on
The skilled footwork of the coy child
Dance, dance,
“Eh! Eh!”
The child smiles shyly,
But honors their request,
With steps that mimic
What she has seen the others’ dress shoes do,
Alas savory smell of a hot soup wafts through the air,
Enticed hungry bellies hurry away from the impromptu dancefloor,
For the beloved dishes awaiting in the next room;
Tiny child hands eager for puff- puff and Fufu
Are re-directed to “wash first”
As the music plays on,
It is the now outdated Makossa sounds of the older generation,
But the tiny ones care not,
They find joy in the sounds,
And this is how they too come to learn,
Ancestral wisdom,
Unknowing the aged messages in the footwork
And the drumming;
The drumming,
in songs,
That helped generations of our peoples,
In Africa,
and in new worlds;
Music that links siblings
Oceans apart,
in this great diaspora
From the motherland.
Differences
He sees the difference,
Between us,
In our views,
In our tastes,
In our skin,
And he celebrates
Out loud,
Letting it slip off his tongue,
But I was taught we are all the same,
But I knew we were different,
But I just saw beauty in it,
How I envy his missing social mores,
That allow him to verbalize
What I was reared to keep tucked under tongue,
I want to learn,
To be like him,
To identify the differences and make them known,
For their existence is a secret,
We all pretend not to know,
Free my eyes to see,
Free my voice to speak this truth
When it need be,
For as I know,
In this difference,
Is human beauty
Acceptance & Adaptation
Cocooned,
For fear I may offend
By being,
Pulled self back so far it is inverted,
Into an observer,
Without the privilege of experiencing,
Of getting close,
Of risking rejection,
Out of fear of that very thing,
Will self to dare,
To push boundaries,
Past minimization of difference,
To grasp the splendor of true diversity,
Reaching, teaching modes of
Acceptance and adaptation in
and of my self.
She of Letters 