When I look back,
Remembering the Caribbean coast with
Its sweet sugarcane and rich mahogany,
I internalize this notion,
The beauty of its most natural conception being
F-A-M-I-L-Y!
When I spiritualize in the solitude of
My meditation,
I hear the voices of those who
Came before me,
Those righteous Negroid cherubs whose
Footsteps walked through slavery and
Emancipation,
They whose bodies were beaten and violated
By the lynch man, Jim Crow and a Nation’s
Theory of 3/5th’s representation
When I lay my head at rest
I listen to the sweet African sounds
Of someone’s great, great, great, great grand
Speaking out to me in these modern times
Bestowing in a dreamlike manner,
The values of life in all its highness
Remembering in all clarity the way of Sankofa
Which takes you back ancestrally so that you may
Go forth eternally
I exhale the struggles I face in life,
Inhaling the primal spirituality
Of my foremothers and fathers,
Clarity overcomes me
I remember when, where and how the slave hand
Was passed down to me,
I remember how it first felt when that feeling
Quickened my inner Chi
I remember for what reason I chose
To write what I call “The Soul’s Poetry”
So I ask you this question,
Are we not all One Blood?
Many tribes forming One Nation,
Are we not all rooted by the same
Essence that created us and sustains us,
Are we not all,
F-A-M-I-L-Y!
© 2002 A. HANSEN
Remembering the Caribbean coast with
Its sweet sugarcane and rich mahogany,
I internalize this notion,
The beauty of its most natural conception being
F-A-M-I-L-Y!
When I spiritualize in the solitude of
My meditation,
I hear the voices of those who
Came before me,
Those righteous Negroid cherubs whose
Footsteps walked through slavery and
Emancipation,
They whose bodies were beaten and violated
By the lynch man, Jim Crow and a Nation’s
Theory of 3/5th’s representation
When I lay my head at rest
I listen to the sweet African sounds
Of someone’s great, great, great, great grand
Speaking out to me in these modern times
Bestowing in a dreamlike manner,
The values of life in all its highness
Remembering in all clarity the way of Sankofa
Which takes you back ancestrally so that you may
Go forth eternally
I exhale the struggles I face in life,
Inhaling the primal spirituality
Of my foremothers and fathers,
Clarity overcomes me
I remember when, where and how the slave hand
Was passed down to me,
I remember how it first felt when that feeling
Quickened my inner Chi
I remember for what reason I chose
To write what I call “The Soul’s Poetry”
So I ask you this question,
Are we not all One Blood?
Many tribes forming One Nation,
Are we not all rooted by the same
Essence that created us and sustains us,
Are we not all,
F-A-M-I-L-Y!
© 2002 A. HANSEN