Epistle Of The Blackbird Poem by Romella Kitchens

Epistle of the Blackbird

You cannot remember my jazz.
You cannot know my ancestors.
My place of the soulful broken bones, the cast out resistance.

The keys stumble here but with a stuttering magnificence.
You cannot direct me to be the black shadow of a feigned paler supremacy:
This is dark deep within me…

This is self without atonement apologies and regrets.
The black bird flew, fluttered like flute notes.
The Blackbird grieved you could not see the beauty within it ellipses the place of sacrifice.
It's place of fractures and pain.
The black bird dropped black feathers like notes made to float,float, float.
Hale Egypt. Hale the Africa in its silken wings…
Not against other men but in acknowledgment of the fractured self of all.