only native people can own eagle feathers
“only native people can own eagle feathers. you can own an eagle feather.”
she handed me the smudging fan. fresh wood. egyptian scarab carved from carnelian - blue as the ocean she begs to visit.
but she dare not put her face under the shower head, the force of water heated, perhaps suffocating.
a rag will do, to wash away the day, and the days preceding.
im sick and tired of being sick and tired. shes sick and tired of being sick and tired.
ancestral overextension, crafted to be divinity on earth, forced to be slaves.
to a system, a people, defiant to the creators intention.
with hardship comes easy, which you would know if you ready the holy book, the holy books, why stick to just one?
little girls peering at my grandmas book shelfs and coffee tables like altars of grand wisdom.
buddhas and beads, bibles and cigarette butts, maybe a pack of juicy fruit, open them all, indulge, chew on each word like honey from the comb, let me comb, comb your curls, you have good curls, my nya, my joy, your remind me of myself. did you know you were inside of me before your mother brought you earthbound. even though she can’t be here, do you know im still? I will always be here, yes I’ll always be here, for he made you in my image. he made us in his image.
hen why is the image we see so blurry. so fogged. so raw, like open wounds, she would wipe clean. hydrogen peroxide fixes all wounds.
echinacea heals all colds. pangea, tafiti, you know the lands forgotten, beckoning us all to find our north star and follow the path, no matter how dark the sky gets. No matter how dark her skin gets, maybe we should get back to planting seeds in our braids, and from our minds we can create maps that will lead us back home. where is home?
gam would know, for her hands are like maps, each vein like rivers, euphrates, tigres and kahun all leading to the promise land, the mother land, barren and stripped of the people that once slept on her.
each fingerprint like rainbows, draping over dreary cities and saddened places. over her childhood home, boulder colorado, scraping the black off their knees with metal sponges and slathering them in crisco so it wouldnt be so obvious that they were one of only two black families on the block, blocks, miles and miles of “do i belong because I dont feel like it? “
“I dont feel like it” as my sisters and I tried to replace her cigarettes with straws, intention strong, cleverness lacking. digressed from attempting to stop a habit of smoking, when recognizing it as just a symptom. i have symptoms too.
lungs heavy with unspoken words, pacification and suppression.
dare a black woman speak. dare a black girl speak. you know the 1960s wasn’t that long ago?
our history books in black and white, attempting to disguise themselves as ancient scripture, as old as christ,
but gammy tells me about hard r’s and segregated bathrooms when she was old enough to make memories. old enough to start menstruating. tell me how is history repeating itself if what’s being written was just found out yesterday? another black boy dead, another family separated. “Im here nya, i will always be here.”
how much effort did it take to turn your colored shot into a black and white tarp? ancient artifact, found under the feet of my black grandma cooking me spaghetti in the townhome kitchen. telling me about her favorite bishop, and the antibacterial effects of indigenous sage. why crystals aren’t witchcraft, and how jesus wasn’t white - enlightening me on the intelligence of the egyptians, building pyramids in an attempt to touch heaven. a modern tower of babbel? god, can you speak our language.
when they silence us, can you hear the way her heart beats, faster and faster with another phone call that someone has died?
when they push us out, can you hear her carving, slowly, slowly, at wooden walking sticks, propped against the tent post at the jazz festival, the flea market, us little girls in sarongs wrapped around our necks feeling like african royalty.
trying on perfume oils, and asking her to tell us more about why she loves prince so much.
“my flesh may be weak, but my spirit woman has never been stronger”, her hand cold, warmth released as a part of her dissipated, watching nana’s casket go into the ground on that cloudy day.
my gammy reminds me of incense in a sanctuary, an offering to the divine, a request to sit in the presence of all that have been, allah, buddha, and christ himself. bouncing me on her lap, and telling me one day the boys would like my thick lips, she hated hers too.
“only native people can own eagle feathers. you can own an eagle feather.”
risa. dubois. daughter of the world, the exodus of our people from security into struggle, working with wilted hands to make sure my sisters and i could see the stages one day that she never got to see, to climb the mountains one day she never got to climb, to wash our faces in the shower stream, unafraid, in surrender, and in peace.
Grandmas hands - bill withers, let me hold them, you’re still here, you’ll always be here, how blessed am I to have you here, to always have you here, within me like God, little g. Begins with G, oh I love my Gammy.
