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Ghosts
By Kalamu ya Salaam
i have the smile of my
great-grandmother seeing the end of slavery
& you have the hairline of an
uncle/an aunt
who never pressed nor otherwise
chemically altered their hair
only fools don't intimately know
ghosts
the dna of humanity, leaping like
porpoises slick out of the sea
and back into our walks, our
mannerisms, the way we giggle
when nervous, blush when aroused,
or spit fire words
in sputtering ocher anger facing
back the cannibalism of capitalism
ghosts are
just spirits fluttering angel
breaths thru our corpuscles
the wing hum of hummingbirds
motivating us to sound
snatches of remembered songs,
lyrics formerly unheard
in this lifetime, psychically
transmuted across eras,
mali melodies maintained, aural
treasures from our undying befores
face east young people, face east
imagine each line in your hand an
ancestor
how well do you know the
thoroughness of yesterday,
the arching influence of the
previous century, the retrograde
of rationality, so slow compared
to the velocity
of history smashing into the
protons of personality
imagine, your voice is the texture
of sun yat sen singing
a freedom song, your social
erectness the reincarnated posture
of sitting bull standing
barefoot his clear eyes kissing dark earth,
imagine, your breath the aroma of
emiliano zapata biting the bullet
of revolution and spitting fire on
the butts of robber barons
and dark-faced overseers who the
psychological sons
of simon legree in their twisted
brutality towards their own people,
the defiance of your
unsurrendering war stance could be ghana's
yaa asantewa hurling up the west
coast facing down british guns
confident that the religion of
resistance will always outlive
the technology of repression, you
could be the heroics of history,
a phantasmagoria of sacred
strugglers vivifying the surge
of timeless protoplasm which
careens through your veins
and gives substance to the
willingness of your animated engagement
with the omnivorous enemies of the
planet earth
ghosts are
sacred illuminations coloring our
stratagems and meditations,
they are the realization of
sanity, the moment we truly understand
just how wicked the west actually
is, the translucent
lights on the front porches of our
spirits beckoning, guiding our,
soft footsteps on the path,
heading back homeward bound
dancing into the social circle of
our collective selves
ghosts remind us
each individual is more than one,
a communal hope chest
of ancient dreams actualized in
the present
i believe in ghosts, i do
because i would be soulless matter
otherwise
i would be some french rationalist
trying to intellectually manufacture
& market the focus of life as
the ego of thought, would be
some compassionate corporate ceo
with spiritual arthritis
uninformed by the blessings of
sharing while pretending
that material possessions elevate
morality as if you are what you own
rather than are what you do/be in
relation to others and the world
ghosts
do not like vaults and crypts, nor
fences and forts
red ghosts prefer sensitive
personalities and wild open spaces,
every time we inhale a leaf
shakes,
a tree or a weed offers us breath
give thanks to the grass for our
daily inhalations
i am not a mystic
but i know there are ghosts
in the fecund topsoil which
progress
callously covers with concrete,
i understand the reality that dust
and dirt are airborne bones
pulverized by time into tiny
particles
if you do not believe in ghosts
where do you think your spirit
will be
when the corporeal temple of your
familiar
crumbles into seemingly
insignificant pebbles of peat or
when your temporal sanctuary
dehydrates
once disconnected from the
moisturizing of life's cosmic juice,
when the way station of your flesh
altar no longer receives offerings
& when you revert to what you
were before your human being
was conceived and made flesh via
the union of your parents,
won't you be a ghost then?
there are literally millions of
lives in your little finger
the karma of colonialism will not
be undone
not unless and until the ghosts
that reside
in the hosts of color worldwide
can find a culture
which resonates daily contentment,
there will be no end to the
wandering search for the promised land
unless and until ghost can live
inside the wholeness of beating
hearts synchronized
in embracement, respecting the
healing touch
of every manifestation of life no
matter how small, obscure,
or ostensibly insignificant,
no calming the tempest,
no mediation of the disruption of
our heritage
not unless and until ghosts can
emigrate
into a peace filled community of
souls such as we
ought to be, vessels of awareness,
responsible in our openness
to offer wholesome residences for
the motion flow
of history seeking future,
there will always be a wailing
issuing out our mouths
unless and until ghosts can live
and
comfortably reside, live, and rest
inside, rest
in peace, rest in us
ghosts
rest
ghosts
in
ghosts
peace
ghosts
rest
ghosts
in
ghosts
us * * *
* * Source: Nia:
Haiku, Sonnets, Sun Songs (manuscript) |
