IN THE EVERGREEN OF HOPE
In the forest of despair,
The evergreen of hope,
Firmly rooted,
Stands in the mist
Of the saws
Of injustice:
Her tired body
Having withstood
The fires of debilitation
And devastating mudslides
Of eroding equity and justice:-
Like her ancestors,
Seek, knock, and ask,
The evergreen of hope
Cannot, and will not,
Be rotted away
By political fungi
Of deceit,
Nor racist bacteria
Of eroding unjust laws:-
Though in its shaded rest,
Hopelessness
May linger for a while,
The evergreen of hope,
Continues to raise her eyes
To the nourishing sunshine
Of reality,
As she sows
Her fertile seeds
In waiting bowed heads,
Impregnating
Their mental soils
With divine
Liberating wisdom
And its supreme guidance:-
That existence is not a burden
Never occurred to a mind straining in darkness
But is now what I can grapple with because
You taught me a new language of love
And I expect to read new stories
I will always have an entombed illness
A debilitation that I must walk with
But new languages open new roads
Some that are slightly smoother than others
And easier to walk with you
To my dear son Daniel:
STOOD BY ME
My little boy stood in front of me
shouting, “You’ll have to go through
me first when he saw I was in danger.
My boy stood by me when the
Law firm jobs crushed me into
Debilitation.
My boy stood by me when
life took us in and out of places
of extreme hardship.
My boy stood by me many
times in sickness and injury.
My boy stood by me, always
assuring: “Things will get better,
Mom!”
My boy stood strong by me
when our beloved dogs, Rocky and
Brownie went to the Rainbow Bridge.
My boy stood by me when the
deaths of my mother and brother
shut me down to nothing.
My boy big and small, always knew
when I wanted to give up, letting me
know he still needed me.
My boy says, “Never give up,
Mom, there is more for you
to do in this life!”
My boy is my hero, my savior,
an inspiration that I cannot
live without.
My last wish is for my boy to stand by me
a little longer, in case God calls me home
while we still need each other.
Love Mom
Tiredness has me enveloped,
Wrapped in the arms of its misery.
Though darkness long since fled coming of day
My eyes cannot open to see.
Trapped- this body,imprisoned by its hold,
The cloying embrace that won’t let me be.
I can only respond to beckoning sleep
As in sweet oblivion she cradles me.
I’m sure anyone facing ongoing illness will be able to identify with this.I wish you all strength and hope. June x
Paradoxically, slavery showed equanimity—
Its suffering displayed no discrimination;
We all shared equally, its debilitation,
And were equally denied any sympathy
Over the Middle Passage odyssey;
Black men were prized; and black women too;
Children were also part of the stolen crew—
You see, when it came to you, the children and me,
Misery was equally shared by the slave family;
A strange institution indeed, was chattel slavery—
Its bitter legacy equally shared by today’s black family;
Heirs to the cruel legacy, lets fight ‘til we’re all totally free.
Rise up black man! Rise up black woman! Rise up black child!
No longer be defiled! We’ve already too many centuries to reconcile!
Birth—Coronation
Belief—Creation
Pain— Debilitation
Sin—Damnation
Joy—Association
Despair—Isolation
Praise—Adulation
Time—Anticipation
Truth—Revelation
Faith—Salvation
Death—Divination
Life—Reincarnation
(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)
Darkness
Descending Doom
Despondency's Domain
Deleterious Degrading
Deepening Dramatic Desecration
Demonic Debilitation
Destructive Delusion
Desperation
Darkness
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