Misty Watered Colored Memories...

Sometimes the smell of a piping hot 

Straightening comb on the stove,

Brings back sweet memories of my mother in droves.

On Sunday mornings like clockwork she'd get up at the

crack of dawn,

To cook and clean and fawn --

Over all of us from the youngest to the oldest

In the kitchen seasoning, shaking and baking

Always teaching us about our tumultuous yet valiant history,

Never letting the murders of Emmett Till or the assassination

of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr  become a mystery.

Embedding a poem in my heart when she sat

me down at 9 years old and read,

The Ballad of Birmingham' by Dudley Randall,

Which gave rise to a poet 

Encouraging me to write 

About the things

That I couldn't readily handle.

Always making our lives beautiful 

Working a 9 to 5 and always being dutiful

Smiling and making jokes 

Never really going along with folks

Just to get along she's a cut above the rest,

Even in her down time she was shimmying

and doing her best...

With Daddy at the 1208 or the Get Down Lounge,

Man, there is something so powerful about this scrimmage

towards memory lane that I scrape and scrounge...