Measure
Just like a peacock that paces up in down by the water’s edge you sashay up and down my
streets…Strutting around like you were the Ring Master at the three circus’s show that had
just come to town. You seem to say…Look at me? I’m the most beautiful thing you could ever
have the good fortune to see or meet… with your half dressed self and your face painted up
like some damn circus clown! You’re one pomp’s arrogant sister that has really lost sight of
the true dream…it was not just about equal rights we should all have, no my sister. No not it
at all, but it was the dream of a people and not just one man. We as a people all demanded
the right to be afforded the same education, the same jobs, the same housing and the rights
to raise our children without the fears of some grown men dressed up in sheets trying to
scare them from becoming all they could be or want to be in this world. This is why I say to
you my sister…Take off your make up of degradation! Take off your clothes of disgrace! Pick
up your dreams and rise like the sun! Rise like the beginning of a new day! Be the light in
your child’s life and not the darkness! Be the tree that has taken deep root in your family’s
life that the storm can’t knock down! Take your rightful place next to me as my proud black
Queen of my dreams! Measure yourself by the fruits that fall from your tree and not by the
many trees that gather around you to grow in the shadow of your shade.
Copyright © Jay Anderson-Taylor | Year Posted 2009
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