Mama Tayé's Elder's Prayer - Offering Eight

Mama Tayé's Elder's Prayer, Offering Eight
Calling on the one who is greater than the sun, the one who shines light upon us and exposes the darkness of hate and fear. Calling upon the one who brought new year and new light in the same week and covered the night voices proclaiming their duty to fight. Calling upon the great you to lead us into this journey.
it is our duty cries the daughters and sisters who declare time to change the narrative, that remind us that black lives matter and all life has value. That we have a duty to unite, organize, and deploy to the place of the real work of social justice and humanity.
From the middle out as watchers descend on the gateway city and declare the human rights abuses of those with a badge in the land of the free, we pause in the felt presence and watchful eye of the great cloud of witnesses, to center ourselves, the strengthen ourselves and prepare ourselves for the great work ahead.
As seasons change and night becomes day and the warmth of roots fills our soul, let us hold onto the righteousness of the youthful charge, to go forth and to shout with a unified voice, to be unmoved.
One then two then three then more lights snuffed out with the fire from the fearful hands in blue and the people mourn, cried out, mother's and father's hearts rendered in two, anguish filled the soul and to the streets they continue in the face of threats and trolls and surveillance to declare that our lives matter.
In this moment where hate threatens to darken the sky of the arch reaching so high, love and honor and commitment and overpower the clouds of darkness, unity confounds the enemy. Let us keep walking in light and finding in each other that spark of fire igniting purpose that makes us declare no more, that wakens us from our stuppor.
We who sleep no more and keep the night watch pause to honor the warriors, the sisters and brothers with the tireless feet and the powerful chant to the ancient drum beat of our soul, we keep on, we must, we must, we must for "we who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes."
Asé, Mama Tayé

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Mother's Favorite Chair

IN MOTHER’S FAVORITE CHAIR by Tayé Foster Bradshaw       I am not sure when this journey began or really, where it will even end up.  I keep thinking that I will walk back into the room and see her sitting there, book in hand, coffee at her little side table, a smile on her face.  But I am fully awake and I know this is all happening, all around me.       “Your mother went up to heaven,” that’s what they all told me.  “Okay.” I ran off to play.  I am only four years old.  I believe them.  They would never lie to me, this I am sure of. They have always taken care of me, giving me cupcakes that my grandmother made, the lady with the long, long gray hair that I saw one time in the early morning when she didn’t know I was awake. I was supposed to be asleep on the sofa, snuggled next to my little brother and my cousin, we were supposed to watch Romper Room in the morning, I was awake, hol...
Read more

Poet-to-Poet Talk With Lori Widmer

Poet-to-Poet Talk With Lori Widmer Lori, welcome, thank you for chatting with me today. Thanks for inviting me. J Let me begin by saying we are both explorers of the MOOC platform, having virtually met in Modern and Contemporary Poetry taught byProfessor Al Filries of the University of Pennsylvania.   Tell us what drew you to this ModPo13 class? I’ve had an interest in poetry since I was young. In fact, my first “work” was a poem. It was about a salamander. Hey, it was sixth grade—that’s as creative as I could get! But I loved the idea of studying poetry formally. When this course appeared on Coursera , I couldn’t avoid it. In fact, this is my second time through the course. A salamander! My daughter is a writer in 6 th grade, that sounds like something she would write about.  Tell us a little more about yourself…are you a professional writer? Poet? What do you do? I’m a freelance writer and editor, and my concentration is business writing. I have over...
Read more