The Blackest Petal Of The Rose Poem by Romella Kitchens

The Blackest Petal Of The Rose

Little Black ladies of broken-down mule slippers and sepia dreams, cracked teapots still wept over and children who never loved their darkness or knew what it was to lay down and have them instead of simply let go.
Little Black ladies of protest and the unrepentant dreams.
The little Black ancestors of change and new era sharecropping all at the same time.
Little Black ladies of lonely rooms, broken blooms and work swollen hands.
Toomer sang to you in a croon of versification.
But, this generation just makes money on exploiting
or hating you
when you need held so badly and so much more…
Little black ladies of the never too soon but the
always too late.