Where I’m from my ancestors taught me how to water bend.
We took refuge in the rivers of the James before Columbus
had consent to middle passage to our borders. We learned how
to air bend tornados and hurricanes to the colours of our winds.
Algonquian was my dialect before our identities were nothing
more than the expendable crafts of our clay—and several centuries later,
you still smell our bloodline. The indigenous—the oppressed—the homeless,
We are nomadic because we refused to fill your nostrils with the road kill.
See here we speak spirit. Elemental auras. We sentence in Agape.
We still offer seats at our table. This—is a generous gift—
this Thanks—taking— we eat and mend holistically. This
handshake be cinnamon, dance be salmon, speech be blended melodies
pepper, food makes you speak in my Mother’s Native Tongue…Calypso.
My blackness is America at its finest. An American mutt
of identity and expectations. Touch me and you learn the
hidden messages of the rains here. The love letters of the trees,
the affairs of my mountains, and discover the vocal cords of your pollution.
This heartbeat is the sound of the organ’s origins.
It sounds like Cherokee, like Blackfoot, like Bluefoot,
sounds like Powhatan. Like BIG BROTHER that
refuses to take this neglect from Y’ALL’S system oppression.
Sounds like laughing children under their mommas. Like the duality
of birds and helicopters chirping before the gunshots of the invaders
stripped me of my people. Like fossil fuels poisoning our Mother Earth.
The Honu we forget to pay tribute too when we run and cry to Allah.
