Where are we now?
When the system works effectively and leaves no child behind?
When I've seen invisible men, raised as black boys, sow talents for colored girls who saw themselves in the bluest eye as apparitions. Fragmented phantoms that you can sorta see and sorta feel, taking lashes on a turned cheek with their eyes watching god like Zora Neale.
What is there to do when to make it up there to tell it on the mountain top you have to witness the descent of the girl who fell from the sky?
I had beloved kindred down those mean streets that understood the first part last, thus, never divining important lessons before dying.
How does it feel to be the lowest common denominator for so long? So long that our autobiographies are algebraic and undefined. Unable to see our reflection in a rising cane river, we move closer to our tipping point.
This, after reading the dreams of our fathers from the brown etches in our palms? This, after listening to Sula sing a song of Solomon at the threshold of Giovanni’s room?
The phrase on the tongues of firebrands is change, an ember on the wind of words spoken. A manchild will always be told to find their promised land in another country.
BUT, if none of what was written was true, then are we not saved? Or is the new Jim Crow pure and pristine, the color of water? Either way, we'll have the fire next time.
