(inspired by Audre Lorde) For those of us who have seen the sun rise over the ocean, run its fingers through the blue-black silver, form brassy waves and lines, lift it up high into tufts of light, gilded crowns holding up the dawn. For those of us who have seen…

They always call powerful women born straight from the cosmos, created to heal and mend others witches. They did that to midwives, women who could bring new life safe into this world straight from the door of the universe. They do that to wise women, still - independent, smart, young, single, elderly…

This place of a thousand hills, this place of thousands of lives spilled, because someone drew lines, measured heights and noses, created differences no one saw, while others tried to show how similar we were to gorillas, to understand our origins - sharing 98% of DNA, such close cousins a sneeze could wipe out whole families…

Imagine your sweet brother hacked in the head with a machete, skull splitting easy as a banana tree. Imagine your brave sister raped, infected with HIV, body and soul broken for life. Imagine your strong mother shot in the head as she tried to fight, a hunted lioness defending her cubs…

grown men’s tears well, swell and fall in my presence like water beads bubbled up by salt sprinkled on courgette and aubergine, bleeding out of purple and green bruised and battered hearts, pushed out by love always - love for a girlfriend love for a mother love for a daughter love for commitment love for sacrifice love for loyalty love for music love for dance…

I wonder what the white woman with hair half dreadlocked, half straight as a bone felt when the black poet told her she couldn’t have her hair like that not directly in so many words, but through all the words she wrote when another white woman asked if she could pretty please have her…

she’s been planning this day her whole life, poured her wedding dreams into sage green cream silk cushions, fairy lights, hay bales, real dried flowers in woven baskets, hot tea and scones, fresh cream and strawberries, little nigerian chinchins, sparklers and dancing under the perfect full moon love is patient, love…

I see the graceful swing of his smooth locs first, stretching like fingers down his muscled back; easy sway of hips strutting down the road, working his orange high-viz like it was amber-encrusted; dustbin smell trailing behind like gooey-eyed fangirls begging for just one selfie, a treasured autograph. reggae tune…

I see an old black man walking slowly in a park and think — YES for you are used to forests leaves green, bright, fresh - no crispy edges - and all the birds. Lord what a crazy thing it is to be alive in this world - all these preoccupations, and the trees keep singing…