Our Language is our fam’ly tree
The ties that build affinity
With words traversing waves of thought
The gap between us fades to naught
Out of the kiln, the words that build
Tribes, cities, armies, courts and guilds
Cementing ties of human hearts
Foundation for the sciences, arts
Thus Language forms the grounding strong
For human life, its wax and throng
To depths of seas and heights of space
Its thrumming drives the human race
Alas its boon hides darker tones
For language also marks the zones
Between a commonwealth of us
Against the others we distrust
Without a common lingual sphere
Communities cannot cohere
From babel curse of estranged tongues
Flows mistrust and committed wrongs
So you may think ‘tis insensate
For nations to compel, dictate
One Language to unite them all
Must we be caged in one tongue's thrall?
Such is the fate of nations blessed
With populace diverse, now pressed
Into each other's common fate
Be it with joy or teeth agrate
This babel curse need not be rued
Variety is a gift imbued
Unto those nations such as ours
Rejoicing in our hundred flowers
A common language bridges, brings
The people all together, wings
Of peace take flight in concert when
Our hearts unite in common ken
And that one speech need not efface
The shared melange of varied race
That makes up nations on this earth
Where each one owns their human worth
So let us celebrate, rejoice
Humanity in one shared voice
With pride our anthem loudly sung
In warp and weft of one shared tongue.
On Waking Up
Some fine morning You will wake up Like from a dream And realise that All the trappings of your life That nice condo The fast cars The fancy things Never really mattered And what you thought was important That big job That bold business card The numbers you had to hit They were mere details Necessary perhaps, at some point But never truly sufficient And what really mattered was How you were loved How you loved in return The blessings you had And how you showed gratitude for those blessings I pray we wake up soon I pray for me, and for you.
On Baharis
I barely knew you
And I knew almost nothing of
When and how you were born
Or who your parents were
Or how you got here
Or how you found yourself being
A young bride in a strange land
Surrounded on all sides
By people who did not love you
And did not care that you were barely loved
I barely knew your life
But I know that in the young years
Of my own life
You loved me with the fierce tenderness
Of a lioness, claws and all
Maybe they never loved you
But you had love abundant
Your love, transcendant
For me, for us
On Finding Peace (It’s Not Your Fault)
It's not your fault That he left you It's not your fault And there is nothing wrong with you He just did not know How to be What he needed to be For you And for himself It's not your fault It never was.
On This Teahouse (Amiability)
I have come so far
And it is only forty years later
That I can now feel
The inexorable
inviolable
inescapable pull of gravity
Anchoring me here
In amiable exile
I have everything I need
Here
Except for the buried treasure
Of finally seeing myself
And loving myself
With fullest acceptance.
On That Deep, Dark Void
Don’t ask me to look into
That deep, dark void
I just cannot imagine
This life without
You.
On Mutual Vanity
Look at us! Look at us!
So accomplished, so prestigious!
Is that you,
In that magazine?
Well it’s me,
On the cover of the magazine!
Look at us!
I mean,
Look at me!
On Trying Not to Drown
On the phone with you, minutes to midnight
We talked of scandal and cats and The Crown
And I could not find words to be forthright
With you: how I’m trying each day not to drown.
On Waiting
"I thought I had already worked it out, you know
I've confronted the whole idea of
Him
And I've figured it all out
I did all that inner child work
And I'm free to choose my own path now
But I still cannot find it in me
To forgive him"
(And maybe forgive myself)
"Well, maybe that child is still waiting
Waiting
For his daddy to come home."
(And that broke me
Broke me again and shattered me into a million shards.)
On Living Every Day
Wake up Pray and mandi Call Grab Have breakfast and coffee Write my reflections Take the train to the office Work Check Instagram Work Pray Work Eat lunch (sometimes) Work some more Pray Pack up Take the train home Close my Move loop in the mall Eat dinner (sometimes) Pray Read (or watch Netflix) Mandi and pray Turn off the lights and close my eyes and think about Jah and Life and where am I going and what does it all mean and am I doing this right and how am I going to get through tomorrow and. Inspired by Ted Berrigan's 10 things I do every day