The Poetry Marathon

Seven nights of family and community

Celebrating

Singing

Dancing

Making music

Storytelling

Sharing meals

Nguzo Saba

Seven candles, seven symbols of values,

Reflecting culture, building community

Black for Unity

despite diaspora,

bonded in blood spilled and yet flowing,

washed in the water we crossed

Red for Self-determination

to speak who we are

with pride and dignity

Green for Working together,

taking Responsibility for each other

lifting and holding us as one for all

Red for building and sustaining legacies

empowering us with the will

to remember and make our own

Green for Purpose,

restoring traditions,

accomplishing greatness

never-ending

Red for Creativity,

adorning our world with

sights, sounds, scents, tastes, touches

that we make,

leaving it more beautiful than we received it

Green for Faith,

unspeakable joy,

unshakeable belief

in our righteousness

that our struggles will end in victory

Kwanzaa

The extra A

So they’ll know

It’s aspirational

American made

African inspired

His body kept me warm,

Not his love

His love is what I needed

Not what I wanted

His want was all I got

Not my needs

His fullness left me empty

An orphan left on a doorstep

his magic hidden from himself

and the world

Thrives with careless non-care

From those who should love him

Wakens to the wonder of wizardry

Befriends the outcast and lonely

who help him defeat a deadly enemy

Finds the stone he did not seek

Chooses honor over power

Returns to the mundane life

that keeps him safe but

Is not his home

This is just the beginning of his story.

As the grass and the weeds die and wither

A building is growing — spots of color

but little diversity

My eyes are drawn to the yellow door’s handle

to the red door’s oval spot

calling attention to themselves

breaking up the rectangles, the squares

the patterns

everywhere else

But the ground and the grass

are not cut from cookie dough.

Maybe I missed something.

are they weeds?

are they dead?

will they see a resurrection

in the Spring?

Maybe the building is dying.

Maybe it’s the weed.

I see no life there.

Marching slowly with the Treaty People

Towards the headwaters

Of the Mississippi

To support water protectors

Who put themselves in harm’s way

To save water and the sacred land.

Feet sometimes trip

Over each other

So we stop to rest

And rehydrate

In the triple digit heat.

We talk stories

And remember why we’re there.

We pace our steps while singing

The “Nibi Song” – the Water Song.

No. Not that one.

The one Doreen wrote

Inspired by her son.

With each striding forth,

We remember what others have forgotten:

The treaties promised

People would be free like the water

To flow and flourish;

The treaties promised

Sacred lands would be kept sacred.

When we honor the treaties

Our ancestors signed

We honor the ancestors.

Have they no honor?

Dragonflies gather

Wherever, wherever we go.

We’re told what Ojibwe hold true:

They’re the ancestors surrounding us.

As if to say, “Miigwetch.”

We’re on this march together.

When did they bury you?

Why did they leave you?

Did they hope to enjoy these remembrances

In their old age?

Or did they leave them behind –

Disappointed, dispirited by what was past?

Or did they want them to overflow into

Other lives?

A well-bound, well-read book,

Out of print,

Of no current value —

Except in someone’s memory?

Simple pictures, simple words, simple childhood

Of bright days — never night —

Outdoors on clean suburban streets

With pets and siblings

Running and laughing and staying clean:

A story few children live anymore.

A metal decoder ring,

Splattered with patina:

What secret message does it hold?

Here’s one mystery left to solve:

Once found for free

In boxes of cereal or kool-aid

Or cracker jacks.

Now worth hundreds on ebay.

A pressed carnation,

Plucked from a corsage to remember –

A wedding? A prom? A graduation?

Time frozen and fragile to the touch.

Are the memories as faded as the flower

Or is there still a fragrant joyousness

To be found?

Tobacco leaves wrapped like a gift

Inside a linen handkerchief.

Tied with a bow:

Too large for cigarettes,

Were they taken from a cigar

Or bought for a pipe?

The linen could not save the aroma

Maybe the ring can decipher

It’s secret?

More memories flow out

From this box of memories.

More mysteries with each one.

Did they want to leave you behind?

On purpose or by chance?

Did delight become regret?

Did they leave it here for me to find?

Did they know someone

Would need to find evidence

of family

of blissful love

of simple lives

overflowing?

This was the ancestors’ water

Yours and mine

They protected it from harm.

Flowing clean, unimpeded

To the sea,

Sometimes it offered up richness

For they fished, they drank, they washed

In this water

Sometimes it gave too much,

Overflowed in anger, brought death

This was their water –

Quenching and flooding —

And they tended to its needs

And now it’s ours.

This was the ancestors’ air

Yours and mine

They drank it in with every breath

Sometimes it gave a soft breeze

On hot summer days

Sometimes it whipped a whirlwind

And brought down what they’d built

And snatched lives

This was their air –

Gentle and wild –

And they tended to its needs

And now it’s ours.

This was the ancestors’ earth

Yours and mine

They tended it with care

Unsure of reciprocity

For sometimes it lavished them with

Sustenance, sufficiency

And sometimes scarcity and pains

Of hunger and want

This was their earth —

Abundant and barren —

And they tended to its needs

And now it’s ours.

“And now it’s ours.” from Legacy by Nora Roberts (page 434)

I’ll not let sorrow have my tears

My sorrows are full enough,

Overflowing and spreading drearily across my life

Eclipsing my sunrises

Shrouding my stars

I’ll not let sorrow have my tears

To shrink themselves into less,

Washing away guilt

Cleansing the soul

Stealing meaning from my sadness

I’ll not let sorrow have my tears

To comfort the pain,

Keeping the hurt within me

Enduring like a martyr

Baptizing as if divine

Rather than drown in swells of sorrow

I’m saving my tears for joy

Whenever it comes.

I’ll let joy burst out with my tears

Glimpsing another world

Two worlds parallel

Mimic each other slantly

A light explodes, filling the sky with holy fire

Reaching for the ribbons of endless roads

A heavy wing lifted, about to lift us

To infinite possibilities:

Fear watches the other side

A light diminishes, shrinking against

The sky, a muddy road going nowhere

A withered wing is wounded

Chaining the world to nothingness:

Envy watches the other side

Why are you dreaming of a return

To normal?

Your normal was never mine.

Your normal gave me pain

And heartbreak.

Your normal was my hell,

My misery.

Let this mark the end of your normal

And of mine.

Hope’s last cry for breathing space.

Let go of memory’s faulty lies

Live today

For tomorrow’s dreams and

Let yesterday’s shadows remind us

How useless

It is to dream of normal.