I wait silently each year,
praying that someone
will have the words to explain how
to explain why.
But everyone is silent like me.
We have moments of silence,
becoming years of silence,
that today became a decade of silence.
Today I speak because silence
hasn’t healed the hurt.
It hasn’t soothed the wound.
It hasn’t caught this sinking falling feeling.
without even a whisper singing
“I’ll catch you if you fall- if you call- if you cry.”
So today I speak in the song
in the grace
in the shade
in the love
in the hope of remembrance
for all those who fell
for all those who passed
for all those who lost
for all those who hurt.
I want to smooth over every ache
I want to untie every knot in every throat
I want to kiss every tear on every cheek
I want to grant every prayer on the lips
of everyone longing for solace.
I don’t have the words to make hearts less heavy.
I don’t know the remedy to heal broken hope.
I only know when we remember together-
my heart finds peace and comfort in the tears
of everyone around me.
The fear in the eyes of a young Texan man-
afraid of all of my 5 foot frame.
The maternal instinct inside of me
makes me want to hold him close
squeeze him tight to me,
tell him that he is safe
that I would stand in the face
of anyone wanting to hurt him.
That I would protect him.
The hate in inside my blue eyed brother hurts.
Hurts him and hurts me.
The winds of change have come.
For some that breeze brought hate.
For some it built a brighter together-
a bigger love and a greater wisdom.
We are built with masterful minds.
Memories run through us.
Caressing our material
and embracing our metaphysical.
Our voices are what set them free.
Some days I just want to cry
There is no reason
there is no why
another spilled season
I stare into the sky.
there is no how
there is no why
there is no how
there is no why
there is no how
there is no why
there is no how
there is only now.
the sun sets into my spoken broken silence.
my hands become birds and fly away from me
my voice, the wings that carry her to heaven
my prayers, the hymn she sings on her way.
She is my grace of remembrance sent up
into the sky,
in the spirit of love
in the shade of hope
and in the graces of remembrance.