The Ivory Bangle Lady

Dig my hole deep
Intern legacy with my bones
Coat my rich skin
with thick oils
olive, rosehip, pomegranate, shea
Even in death
Even in death

Dig my hole deep
Rest the most brilliant baubles
against the contours of my waist
blue glass, beads, cologne, ivory
Send me with greetings for God
Send me with greetings for God

Dig my hole deep
Entomb my artifacts of glowing and global truth
my inimitable and glorious people
power, wealth, intellect, melanin
History will not bury me
History will not bury me

The Ivory Bangle Lady

"This skull is particularly interesting, because the stone sarcophagus she was buried in, and the richness of the grave goods, means she was a very wealthy woman, absolutely from the top end of York society. Her case contradicts assumptions that immigrants are low status and male, and that African individuals are likely to have been slaves." ~Dr. Hella Eckhard, Archeology Dept., University of Reading (UK)

http://www.react-hub.org.uk/heritagesandbox/projects/2012/the-ivory-bangle-lady/

The Ivory Bangle Lady

Comments

Tiger Pause

At eleven, my daughter's fears were getting mauled by a tiger, injured a car crash and being a victim of rape. We talked a lot over the years about sex, sexuality and patriarchy, music lyrics and power, media, shame and the law, discretion, integrity and the whispered fragility of boys. At sixteen, I rocked her as she wept. Her slender shoulders were violent from crying. One of her friends had been raped. Months ago, but was only beginning to share. Months ago, when she started losing weight, stopped hanging out before pre-calc, and kept exhaustion shadowed beneath her makeup contours. We sat crouched on the stairs leading up to my room. She'd called out my name from the dark hall. Her voice, normally expectant and full, had been small and reaching. I peeled away from my husband to find her on the landing, shaking. My daughter felt helpless and hurt that her friend had gone through so much all alone. That she didn't know. Couldn't have known. That it was so unfair....

Dear Deborah Brown Community School ~ It is quite a feat for a small charter to make national news. It is perversely disappointing, however, to read that a charter school led by two black women is systematically persecuting students of color for celebrating the natural textures of their hair. As an educator, I understand and value the impact of comportment. Indeed, many ills of the contemporary school environment can be aggravated by lax guidelines on conduct and appearance. Nonetheless, your policies against natural hairstyles levels a much more serious attack against your students. Rather than teaching them how to be “presentable,” your policy forces the concept of “acceptable” at a disastrously early age. Yes, the school should vigorously mandate “neat,” “modest” and “respectable.” These are essential expectations. Denying the option of neatly, modestly and respectfully showcasing the heritage of their hair, however, reinforces a wickedly...

Kraken the whip

It. has been. a YEAR since I've sat down to write. From this side of my pen, that is. Writing projects, yes. Scripts for one-woman shows. A children's book. A 11-minute poem that I performed with the Milwaukee Ballet. Nothing to boo hoo about, at all. Except these words weren't, necessarily, for me. I might have etched five poems, but I would have stirred them in a workshop I was leading or supporting. Not sure if that counts as writing for myself. When I started counting on my fingers, my eyes tracking absently across the ceiling, the math was incomprehensible. I thought of friends I'd giggled with about their comparable sex dry spells. A year, girl? A whole year, like twelve months, back to back, f'real? My bad, y'all. In this past year, my best words were tiles for funding mosaics, grants and proposals, strategic plans, contract agreements and curricula, social media posts, text messages -sometimes a panel's worth, and eight trillion emails. ...

...and then...

Search This Blog