Pre-2020©
By Anna Greene Dell’Era©
As I gaze seagulls’ flight
I give thanks for the gift of sight
As I peer the intensity of the sea’s aquamarine
I accept the unknown of things unseen
I reflect on my ancestors’ plight
Sardined in slave ships
Unable to see light.
I flinch at undenyers’ protocol
Deemphasizing the indignity of my people’s journey, while standing tall
Is it me, or could it be I’m talking to a wall?
I tire of explaining the story
in different languages
to folk who have no clue,
It is frustrating and demeaning,
when they feign indifference, these folk who don’t like me…
Then I remember Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
or John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me
And understand
Penning my story is the key.
I came of age in America
Ventured across the Atlantic sea
The inequity of racism in the South
Naturally left its mark on me.
Navigating exisitence in Europe
Exempts my seed nor me freed from the sting of reflecting what Phillip Roth considers the Human Stain.
But what I know what for sure
Is that those who attempt to suppress and oppress us suffer from a mighty inferior pain.
Painful yes, to hear an Englishman tell my Italian husband that I am of the inferior race,
To hear a French woman compare my daughter to an ape, right in front of my face,
To hear a German man tell me I should go back to Africa and pick peanuts,
And thus, while pregnant, by yet another German man, to be called a whore,
To be repeatedly unnecessarily detained by Swiss, German, and French police officers,
in an attempt to disintegrate my core.
You who suffer with the disease of white supremacy, a nugget of advice I will share with thee,
I am beautiful, elegant, intelligent, spiritual, God’s child, full of pride
My heart holds multitudes of space, my castle abundant and wide,
Evil will never, ever consume my space
Spirit rebukes it, Love is jumping around all over the place, I will not break.
On this journey, I am selecting nuggets of joy to thrive,
Move please, I have things to do, Climbing, climbing, oh, so high!
Giving thanks to each moment, Hallelujah, Jesus, I am alive!!!!
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