I just submitted this to another site when asked to describe what this presidential inaguration means to me. I want to share it, because I had intended to relate this experience much earlier. Instead, I merely “basked” in it, and went about my own business. Better late than never, I guess…
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At some point in my youth, I began to walk through life hunched over, eyes downcast. Despite my potential, I never felt quite “good enough.” I “sold myself short” by letting my dreams fall by the wayside…
Barack Obama disintegrated the cynicism and distrust I had in my own country, when it united to elect him as the 44th President of the United States. The morning after the announcement was made, I went to the grocery store and walked boldly with my head raised high. Finally, I could look those passing by me in the eye. I was no longer afraid. My blackness was finally a badge of honor, instead of an impediment for a job, a date or whatever lie I used to believe.
Approaching the second month of this “amazing reality” and I still stand tall and grandly strut down the sidewalk on my way to the bank, the post office, the gym…I am no longer the same, and that is some kind of change, indeed.
Hi E.,
How clearly you speak.
I want to share a poem with you. Love, Helen
**
White Into Black
Sin.
Freed
into that darkened sky—
Friday.
How can one be born
when one is old:
washed—
in the flood from His side,
beneath the piercing sword?
Surely
I will abandon my watery grave—
alive:
pale as ancestors, plunged
into its flow—
black as my Jesus, comely:
a bride.
first published in Domicile
That was beautiful…thank you.