Looking out my lonesome boxcar I see my brothers in bondage singing freedom songs. Wondering when their healing will come as I seek mine. Islands of Lost Souls sentenced to endless purgatory.
American where is my traveling train? Darkness enters dawn diminishing shadows play havoc with sun, moon, and stars. Tuning Forks humming. When will I see my Rosie again? Overseer rifle gun trained on me.
Chain gang
Southern Prison Blues Rosie Chain Gang Blues YouTube
Steamer Trunk moth riddled clothes. Ashes scattered into the Ganges. Speckled Watchmen screaming swing that pick boy. Keep that rhythm. Berta, Berta every day is Monday. I’ve fallen into a dark place with no sight of myself. Cleansing Monsoon wash me into dank sinister funeral sands.
Early morning every morning I rise on the wrong side. I cut myself on shards of volcanic ash but the boulders cannot crush my soul. Freedom is a lonesome word.
When that sun goes down then I escape in mind if not in body. In my dreams I see her beside me. A voice keeps calling me. Is it my honey sweet baby or an Angel fit to carry me home? Death Angel. Death Angel, holding the reapers sword.
It was in the early times that the Priestess of Papyrus placed the Holy writ before me and bade me write the vision and make it plain so that our people who read may run with the vision. You hold the pen of a ready writer. Hieroglyphics danced before me then carried me to the Temple for sanctification. Pierced with the hollow reeds that rose up from the Nile filled with the ancestors’ blood the Scrivener was born.
Seshat
Books bit me as a child. I was infected with wordplay and phrases began to drip from my lips and out through my fingers. A light went on in my brain and I was never the same yet all the better for books piercings. Dewey Decimal was a Vampire more worthy than Dracula.
Chosen by the Muses who have awakened me early in the pre-dawn morning and kept me going until Luna takes her place in the night skies. Athena, Isis, Lakshmi, Benzaiten, have anointed me as the High Priestess Oracle as I take my place in the Council of Elders. I ascend my Throne the sacred parchments are placed before me and I begin.
She is me and I am she. My African and Native American Ancestors and I are one. We are One in the Beloved through time, space and eternity. I am the present conduit through which they speak.
I am the Holy Beloved Blessed Scribe commissioned to tell their tales. I am Queen Tiye daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu, Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III, Mother of Akhenaten and Grandmother of Tutankhamun. I am Hatsheput and Nzingha. Nubia and North America are my birthplaces. Ancient Sabaeans and Modern Yemenis are my descendants. Know that Ethiopia the New Jerusalem shall Rise Again! Temples and Churches carved into mountainsides will never fall.
We are the Lost Tribes of Israel and Africa. My lineage stretches across the destinies of continents.
If I Jump back into time. Jump the broom back Mother Africa who will I find? And why do the ancestors call my name?
Though I’m separated from the Motherland for over 200 years there is that spiritual umbilical cord that binds me to Mother Africa. A Mother always cries for her lost children.
Was I being and speaking Yoruba, Igbo, Bantu, Akan, Twi, Tsonga, Nyungwe, Ronga, Ngoni, Chopi, Tonga, Ndau, Tswa, Swahili, Makhuwa, Sena?
In a distant time was I Nzinga Mbande Warrior Monarch of the Mbundu people? How many souls are in my spirit and what bloods run through my veins?
Perhaps my ancestors have chosen me their earthly Sankofa bird to reach back and pull their souls from suffering and oblivion. They are saying, “Remember us!” Redeem us Dear Sister that our deaths were not in vain. Their voices cry out to me from the depths of the oceans. Their spilled consecrated blood from hallowed ground. Yes I hear your cries sacred ones and deliverance is on the way.
Pilgrimage is nigh on Sankofa bird wings Oh land of my ancestors!