What Can We Do
We ask
What can we do
What are the offerings that can be made
What are the words of solace that will suffice
How do we accomplish the wiping of tears
shed in secret beneath sheets of disappointment
Hearts wrapped up tangled up
caught somewhere in the hallway between
yesterday’s history and tomorrow’s promises
What can we do
We can
Tap the staff of our ancestors to mark time keep pace
record happenings of importance
invoke the voices within to come forth
to speak witness participate
We can embody the authority
of our matriarchs and patriarchs
who were crowned in
Brooklyn tenements and Bronx basements
Anointed in the tabernacles of the Carolinas
And initiated in the groves of Osogbo
Like God we can move
hover over the face of the waters
Brooding in contemplation before we utter
a single word of creation
We can surrender to the in between place
The nowhere between two somewheres
and allow ourselves to be reworked transformed and rejuvenated
Disoriented from inadequate speech and reoriented to
generational creative purpose
What can we do?
We can step into the full understanding that
The staff of our history is also the rod of our destiny.