Dear Friends,
We hope that you are safe and well.
Today's Meditation is "Rememory" written by Roya Marsh who laments all that has been taken from her immigrant ancestors. At the same time, she proclaims, "They can't steal us from ourselves."
We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in the church, in healthcare, in the workplace--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.
In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that it is God's economy of abundance: when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.
We hope and pray that you find peace, healing, hope and the infusion of joy in your life!
With our love and care,
Ron and Jean
MEDITATION 427: Rememory by Roya Marsh
This Week's Reflection
When a poem speaks truth, we can feel it. Roya Marsh says the following about this poem: “This poem is written to my ancestors who continue to sustain me. To hip hop. To those whom knowledge was made inaccessible yet survived knowing they can’t steal us from ourselves.” They can’t steal us from ourselves:
Rememory
by Roya Marsh
is the sound of me thinking
in a language stolen from my
ancestors. I can’t tell you who the
first slave in my family was, but we
are the last. Descendants
of the sun. Rye skinned
and vibrant, wailing to
a sailing tomb. We twist
creoled tongues. Make English
a song worth singing. You erase
our history and call it freedom.
Take our flesh and call it fashion.
Swallow nations and call it
humanity. We so savage
we let you live.
I can’t tell you who the first slave
in my family was, but we remember
the bodies. Our bodies remember.
We are their favorite melody. Beat
into bucket. Broken
into cardboard covered
concrete. Shaken
into Harlem. The getting over
never begins, but there
is always the get down. Our DNA
sheet music humming
at the bottom
of the ocean.
Copyright © 2021 by Roya Marsh. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 15, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets
Roya Marsh, poet, performer, educator and activist, is the author of dayliGht (MCD × FSG Originals, 2020), finalist for the 2021 Lambda Award for Lesbian Poetry. A Bronx native, she is the co-founder of the Bronx Poet Laureate position and the awardee of the 2021 Lotus Foundation Prize for Poetry.