photo by Alex Lear

WE ARE GUILTY OF

FORGETTING WHO WE ARE

i am in a room

4 walls, ceiling, floor

2 windows, a door

outside the window is the world

no walls, sky, earth

death, birth, & the relative briefness of life

inside is the same as outside

only smaller, less complex

outside is the same as inside

only bigger, more choices & possibilities

there are only three questions to ask/to answer

1. who am i, 2. what is the world

& 3. how do i change, love or leave it

nothing else except

maybe

            god sitting somewhere

            marveling at our transformation, god

            mystified, unable to explain the logic

            of how we have become just like

            the pseudo-human creatures

            who enslaved our ancestors

            wow

            after all the centuries of racist bullshit,

            lynchings, chattel slavery & such that

            we black people have suffered

            who would have thought

            that violent savages

            & impotent religious fanatics

            is what we would be come

            wow

—kalamu ya salaam