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Standing here in the mind of mine
passing through and over the time
pulling out thoughts sublime:
sorrow, hate, pain, joy, love, sanity--
all the mold character of my humanity;
On the outside, my African character is evident
despite the imprinted middle passage incident,
and on the inside, I'm American born and bred...
child of the black bent backs of the ancestral dead...
still here in the land of the other misnamed: called red;
Memories are like a flowing meadow's storied river--
meandering, undulating, and splashing out to sea--
seeking to reunite with and become one with the Giver
who molded us all...making you and creating me;
N*****, slave, colored, negro, African-American,
is what they chose then and now to call mine and me
but like the river flowing to the sea, I'll decide who to be--
here in the land of the Brave, I'll be an Ameri-African man;
Africa is...America is...and I am of no need
of an explanation;
standing in the life-long memories of the nature
of my exploitation,
and realizing I no longer need to be a footnote*
in his-story
but a complete sentence in the boldface truth
of our-story!
*(If I was them and they were us)
(and I did to them what they did to we,)
(would that not be reciprocity)
(from the true tribe of the exodus?)
