Respite’s Breast…
respite /ˈrespət/ noun.
a short, temporary break, pause, or rest from something difficult, unpleasant, or exhausting.
April 21, 2021
Yesterday, April 20, 2021, in a span of what may have been 60 minutes, George Floyd’s murderer, a cop, was convicted, and then news broke that a police officer in southeast Columbus, Ohio shot and killed 16 year old Ma'Khia Bryant.
This morning, a car drove down the block and I overheard the crooning voice of Erykah Badu, “I’ll call you back”, and my heart dropped down into my breath.
When the system’s attempts at ripping our hearts from our chests becomes relentless, I’ll call them back.
When the tears in our ducts seem to have run dry, sucked up and burned away by violence, sorrow, anger, grief, and hate, I’ll call them back.
When respite is nowhere to be found, when the blood shed has tainted the whites of our eyes,
I’ll call us back to Ye Yo’s breast.
When we believe we have nothing left, when our power and care has been left bereft, I’ll call us back.
When we think the spirits and the divine, and the ancestors are done and have gone, when the winds that carry their whispers move too softly between the trees, I’ll reach in, for this voice, and I’ll reach down, for this pen, and amplify their sound, so I can call us back.
I’ll call us back.
I call us back.
