Silk Stockings

(written in honor of the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church)

Graceful and tireles
As moonlight on rivers
​Silk stockings soft as
The petals of the sweetest magnolia
Hair, blouse and skirt
Freshly pressed
Crisp as a new day
Stretched across the sky
By the Almighty's own hand

You've strived for salvation
On picket lines
And picnic blankets
Organizing your congregations
And kitchens
With the same tenderness
Stitching the wildest dreams
of your mothers
To the civil rights
Of your daughters

Your nimble hearts dance between
Birthday celebrations
And death commemorations 
Fierce resistance to supremacy 
Tireless love for your children
Your children's children
All of God’s children​

Your agile minds penned prayers
Quilting scraps of bravery
That whispered
Then chanted
None of us is free
Until all of us are free

The Sun himself
Seemed to shine
That the redemption of the American soul
Lies on realizing the sacred dignity
Of all her people

Sisters of Ruth and Ruby
A woman knows that the God who lives
In the Sunday sermon
Also lives in the hands of the mother
Who caresses her child's furrowed brow
And quiets her own drumming heart to
Tend to the future. 
Sensing that tenacious hope
Is the greatest risk our hearts can take

Only you
Could take the righteous fury,
The waves of sadness
And carefully fold them
Like a cotton handkerchief,
Or tattered flag
Placing them into a box
Of dignity,
Respectability
Wrapping them in patience white as a bride's veil
Tying it with the ribbons of song
and sacrament
Presenting the world with the insistence
That we
Shall
Overcome

Today we shall not speak of sacrifice
A woman's heart carries her own
Just as she recalls the
Joyous burden that was
carried by Mother Mary

A woman's body knows them
Just as she knows the
Roads she walked and marched
For the glimmer of liberty
On the horizon
Or across the bridge
Voices lifted, spreading through the sky
Like a dove’s flight
Heads high above the rooftops
Backs long, straight and brown
As the most wondrous mahogany
Next of kin to Sojourner and Shirley
As carefully crafted as your mama's favorite Sunday hat

It is in our giving
That we remind ourselves
That each of us
Is a child baptized again
And again
By the most pure and endless love
Our souls, inextricably bound to the
Holy Spirit

So you blossom
And share your gifts
Whatever they may be
Like ripe peaches in summertime

For the days are many when you were
Unseen
Unheeded
And un-kept by the world
But within these walls
you will always
be wanted
You will always
Be loved
You will always be known
As Divine,
Beautiful
Daughters of the King