Radical Light

I am thinking about the presence of glow and darkness across this world. Energetic glow, energetic darkness. We seek the light. I seek the light. I am so grateful that I do. I have to, especially since I am not an optimist. I don’t believe good things will just happen. But I don’t believe they won’t, and I try to do my part by keeping my light shining, and by sharing it with others. Maybe it’s a radical hopefulness, like Marc Lamont Hill suggests abolitionists must maintain. Because how else do we go forward when we are aware of so much pain, so much injustice, so much evil, so many people who seem to just not give a shit about you or me or anyone else. In the face of so much narcissism. So much abused power and soulless violence, the destruction of the good and the just. We have to walk with our radical imagination engaged, our radical light that we continue to shine to sustain one another, and to sustain ourselves. And to maybe, occasionally stop evil in its tracks at the sheer surprise of the power and brightness and endurance of our radical light. How dare we be happy when they serve up so much misery. How dare we create and collaborate and dance and love and learn and grow and gather and shine. But we do, and we will. We are the radical light.

Ancestor Poem

Ancestor.

You could have never imagined me,

scrolling and clicking through your paper trail,

just a handful of blocks from the house that still stands.

A house of 4 generations in 4 bedrooms

on a dead end street.

Census taker on the step

in 1910

with a new and loaded question,

and an assigned answer.

Race: White.

Meaningless to be European in Europe,

suddenly meaning everything in your new home.

Your first name changing

over time

from Gencofa

to Gena

to Jennie.

And,

how exactly,

with all due respect,                                                                            

how do you mother 9 children without using your mother tongue?

What could make you turn your back on so much

of yourself?

“They wanted to be American,”

is the paperback romance I was sold.

“They agreed to be white”

is the library I now live in,

just a handful of blocks away.