Today was an intense day. The family and I spent the day in the Peace and Justice Memorial and Museum and the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, as part of our Civil Rights tour.
On sacred ground you walk through hanging, rusty, metal rectangular boxes – hundreds of them – each representing a county or parish of states in which lynchings have occurred and each with names engraved of those thousands of our beloved siblings who lost their lives to this terrorist tactic. It is hugely painful, yet cleansing to participate in this recognition and repentance of our sins.
We are deeply moved and reminded of the love and beauty and hope that so many have worked and suffered for – I took this picture of a small tree with a nest cuddled in its branches and just putting out some new buds in the shadow of the memorial as a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is the intrinsic hope, beauty, and renewal of life that we in the north celebrate at this time of year.
I was also reminded of this poem of remembrance from an indigenous poet:
From Writer Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo is a poet and musician, and a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has published seven books of poetry, including: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and She Had Some Horses. Among Joy’s honors and recognitions are the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joy now resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
Wonderful to read this poem and touching to read your story, Wakil.
My mother-in-law who died at 101 a couple years ago grew up in Montgomery. My father referred to black people as niggers… with a sneer. Both of these people died with very different attitudes than in their early and middle years. It took a black great grand-daughter to bring my father’s essential good to the surface. I’m glad each of these elders lived long enough to prove that evolution is still possible.
Blessings,
Hayra