Black Essence

BLACK   ESSENCE ( for Cyrstal)

 Deep

She digs

Into the the darkness of

Uncertainties

The unspoken-ness of

Mysteries

Circulating in dark

Whispering winters and

 blossoming organic summers

bursting eagerly thru

the ripening fullness of spring, and

the dancing leaves of fall

in the silence

she digs……deep……deeper

into the un-nurtured

bottomless pits of anguish

and pulls out the essence….

drip by

daring drip of

ink

 color

oiled- fingerprints

stamping firmly

the essence of

……..who we were

Before we became

…….who we are

Wakening,

Yawning

Blinking

At one another

In full acknowledgement

Of our curvaceous lips and tongues... dominating chins

That rise from proudly anchored neck bones

 Defined shoulders, triceps, biceps and breasts engorged

With the sweet milk and honeydew of life

Steadily replenishing itself without nobody telling it to do so

So natural

So real

So eternal

It can’t be bottled

Because it is…LOVE

“You know….the blackness of our essence”

Chiseled deep in blue-black fluorescence

The past

And the present

DNA in Ocean water “elegance”

wrapped in seaweeds of lessons

for us to remember to tell the babies

tell them children that we are……. from the shores of Ghana

the Ivory Coast, Cape town and Ethiopia, Nigeria and Sierre Leone

from dynasties of Egyptian Kings and Queens

who tried to keep sacred forever ancestral dreams, yet

the stories from in-side the pyramid walls

cannot be erased yall...

no one can rid us

of our connection to the root of it all

dig…..deep

deep…..dig

no…    tiny….   figs

BLACK  ESSENCE

Is

The tallest tree

 in the garden

It is the root of the fruit

And the saliva on the tongue

It is the chromosome that cannot be cloned

If you don’t got it

You don’t got it

Black

Deep

Dig

Deep

Essence

©gha’il Rhodes Benjamin, 2014

In celebration of Crystal Hanton’s

BLACK ESSENCE EXHIBIT