Queen Elizabeth –
A grandmother
A great grandmother
A mother
A person
A woman –
Has died.
There are overflowing tears
Pouring from social, print, and electronic media eyes,
Usurping news of global war, famine, drought, violence.
Tears filling the cups of the United Kingdom
Violently stirring the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel.
But, my eyes are dry
Like the summer’s drought.
Like the chambers of the heart
My heart possesses mixed emotions
- Empathy, numbness, fury.
Deep in the belly bottom of my soul
There’s a noise, a rumbling –
Boiling blood of ancestral pain
Reaching summer temperature levels,
Rumbling loudly like the plantations’ drums of freedom
Precipitating headache, heartache, and soul ache.
It’s not the tears of the English I feel.
It’s ancestral tears
Still crying out
From the belly bottom of Elizabeth’s ancestral ships,
From the belly bottom of Elizabeth’s ancestral plantations,
From the belly bottom of Elizabeth’s captured lands.
I can’t arrest formidable ancestral images:
Images of rape,
Images of scarred black backs,
Images of hanging,
Images of blood oozing from black broken skins,
Images of children separated from mothers’ breasts,
Images of families sold like cattle,
Images that resurrect tears.
Elizabeth –
A good grandmother
A good great grandmother
A good mother
A good person
A good woman.
Yet, in 70 years of ‘reign’
This mother, grandmother, wife, person
No words of apology,
No words of sorry,
No words of responsibility,
No words of reparation
For ancestral brutality.
No awareness of personal wealth
Gained from centuries of ancestral brutality.
No tears of regret or remorse.
I beg for tears to break through clogged veins
For Elizabeth
For her family.
But the only tears that flow
Are tears for black ancestral pain.
Condolences to the British Family!
Prayers and activism for British Repentance!
Beloved Reflections 