A World of Mine

By Joshua Lefort

From the majesty of weathered boughs,

To burgeoning buds and disseminated roots.

From the rain-washed earth,

To the rich black soil and its carbonated diamonds.

Splendor brims with vigor, 

As the plentiful unembodied experience 

We’ve come to know as beauty.

But beauty is but a fragile gift in a cruel world.

A distilled elixir siphoned by the ugliness of our world.

A mine of industrial exploitation to be deflowered, pruned and sorted.

A bountiful light that has been dimmed, muffled and caged.

An enchanting garden that has been set ablaze 

By that which destroys responsibility and acts of consequence.

Why is it that the freely woven thread of my existence 

Threatens the fabric of this world?

A world in which God’s golden eye has been disfigured, 

Blindingly turning away from those deemed Black.

A world in which the walls of division

Have stranded communities, families and countries

In the maze of historical onslaught.

Nature birthed me a black sparrow, 

Yet you’ve plucked my feathers and broken my wings,

All so that my strides could match yours.

As I fall in line with my ancestors, marked by your white print,

Gasping for air like a domino, I breathe my blackness through my pores.

You may have bound my beak, pillaged my food, 

Erased my past and marked my future, 

But you dare not think yourself greater 

Than the underlying force that 

Manifests the reality we share: hope.

Mark my black words: I will fly again.

By Joshua Lefort