Poetry is old…

Poetry is old…

like the soils tucked in between
the threads of my hiking boots.

I continue to trek through forests—
old manuscripts are printed in the bark
of the trees.

The sun casts its glow on the entirety
of the manuscript, but it is the moon
that drops the shadows

and, when I lay my white porcelain skin
on the brown flesh of earth,

I ask why, why am I, only now,
learning history long forgotten?
Or, history, that has been conveniently
erased, held in hid-den caves
by persons sharing the same color
as my painted flesh.

I want to roll in the mud—
covering my skin with old poems.

Human beings, not even considered persons,
were ‘hung’ like vines.
The wilderness wept seeing the bondage
—the ground shook as humans whose skin matched the color of mud
were chained, beaten, raped,
burned, hanged, sold.

Like the wind’s still soft voice,
their voices in the fields
became hymns.

Their souls rose more fervently
like evergreens spreading in a barren desert.

Together, they stood, and stand, like a poem—
old poems writing themselves new.

Juneteenth (July 19th) celebrated a first time.
It is so old, but it is new
to me.

I have removed my boots
and cannot wait for the dark earth
to paint my soles.

Weeping, my tears well from a spring unknown.
I know not its path.

I walk hand in hand with my brothers & sisters,
with earth & sky, ocean & desert,
forest and winged angels,
with city streets and four footed creatures
who ask for nothing except
that old poems be told,
be read aloud,
so that we all may peacefully breathe
the ‘spirit’ uniting us all—
forever, world without end…

Amen

(Written under the wise tutelage of June Gould, Ph. D.)