Recent Work
LOVE LIVED. LOVE LOST.
i grieve today
for the love
awakened yesterday
from its slumber;
unaware that your amber eyes,
savory
and flexible tongue
would unearth a familiarity
and memories from
another lifetime
where we often sat in silence,
gently caressing each other’s hands,
content sitting
by water, atop mountains,
and in trees.
our love predated words.
yet we spoke of it, showed it often:
leaning forward, touching our foreheads,
breathing each other in;
you
stroking my back and firm buttocks;
my fingers
braiding your lush mane,
while you invented music
through a joy filled hum
inspired
by the rhythmic strumming of your hair
between my fingers - pulling notes
through your spirit.
in me,
your love produced the first smile
our world had ever seen.
a smile that rivaled the sunrise.
yet,
somewhere
somehow - an epoch ago I imagine -
we lost each other.
buried the comfort and healing balm,
this sweetness we’ve
rediscovered,
chosen to taste again…if only
for a moment.
this moment,
as ripe with overwhelming longing
as with a karmic cruelty
and
precious pang,
knowing its truth —
that
this time…this time…
THIS. TIME.
we cannot feast on each other as we did
in the millennia of magic,
when we belonged to each other
in the purity
and dawning
of goodness and love.
© Anyika McMillan-Herod, 2024
OBATALA
the man in white cloth
calls me
the man in white cloth
guides me
the man in white cloth
creates with me
he offers me peace
and clarity
he smiles when I give
him gifts of kola and shea
he raises his finger and shakes his head
when I err - because he understands
he sends the dove to
remind me of his presence
he saw me enter the world
he laughed when I cooed
he took my hand when I stood
he rubbed my head when I ached
he clapped when I spoke
he cried when I fell
he listened when I prayed
he danced when I gave praise
he held my pen
and whispered these words
© Anyika McMillan-Herod, 2020
THE FIRE THEY FEAR MOST
We are tired of being defined by pain.
Time to transmute. Transform.
Call on the ancestors.
Do the work of remembering and honoring at the first altar,
so we can use wisdom as our weapon for change.
This is a time requiring more than strength and the content to just survive,
acquiesce in pursuit of a selfish, broken dream.
We are afterall, living and reliving a nightmare.
Have been since 16 and 19, arriving on these solemn shores not by choice and as commodity.
Our gift and brilliance reside in our shining humanity they wish to extinguish with
a knee on neck,
a noose and tree,
an unjust law,
an under-resourced school,
an overcrowded prison,
a virus of hate,
an abundance of food deserts,
and powerful lies and myths the most ignorant and evil among them cling to.
Our shining humanity blinds them!
It enrages and befuddles their tiny minds, empty hearts, and wounded souls.
It oftentimes blinds us, too.
Who are we to be these gorgeous children of sun, moon, red clay, and green earth?
I ask, who are we not to
shine
glow
walk and reign as intended?
And not as masters and czars as defined by their distinct, destructive western ways,
but as the healers, thinkers, artisans, teachers, guides, and lights that we are called to be.
We are
the source
the balm
the core, cradle
and heart of humanity.
It is time we embrace and recognize this, OUR power
and light the fire within us.
Only then, do we take to the streets and the courthouses.
THIS is the fire they fear most.
A fire of truth; not rage.
The long-awaited reckoning.
© Anyika McMillan-Herod, 2020
APOCALYPSE IN HAIKU
nature will prevail
it was here first, in all its
color and glory
© Anyika McMillan-Herod, 2020
A LETTER TO EMMETT TILL
Dear Emmett,
You should be here today celebrating 79 years of life; of giving, of living, of being free to open your mouth to speak to whomever you please, to laugh, shout, sing, and testify of a life well lived - safely and freely.
You should be here...but this country swallowed the hope you carried and your broken body down in the feculent belly of Mississippi (Goddam!). Evil men don't take too kindly to the confident strides and bright eyes of Black boys. You were never to leave the Delta outside of a pine box.
I grieve the loss of our being robbed of the opportunity to witness you impact our world in a way that did not require the sacrifice of your body and the heartbreak of your sweet mother.
Your face, your smile and that light that still colors the black and white photos of you, should not have been extinguished through such venomous violence. That summer in 1955 should have nourished you - your bare feet running through the red clay earth with cousins, J.W.'s hands showing you how to plow, the delight of homemade ice cream melting on your tongue, the lovely thrill of a first kiss on Auntie's porch swing, and the rhythm of the tambourine beating against burnished palms in the tiny country church you squeezed into every Wednesday and Sunday.
I hope you were making beautiful memories before she told the lie and the men snatched you from Uncle Moses' arms, taking you - a child - out into the southern night to perform the sadistic ritual men like them have done for centuries in shadow. These men - if you can call them that - who find joy in snuffing out light and breath.
If only you had been born into a just, righteous world where boys like you can safely bloom on the streets of Chicago, Illinois, the dirt roads of Money, Mississippi, the palm treed paths of Sanford, Florida, or the playgrounds of Cleveland, Ohio.
If only...
I hope you left this world knowing there was no shame in your skin, your walk, and your talk. YOU were never the problem.
With love,
Anyika
(A mother of a Black son who, like you, shines as he was designed.)