The Progeny Poem by Romella Kitchens

Aunties
Older cousins
And Neighbor-Women
All Black
made things
cleaned things
invented and crafted
sang and wrote
experimented in the hypothetical.

Aunties
Cousins
Women who lived near to our homes and hearts
created something even when they were
given very little.

Wise women bore them.
Then they bore wise women.
They rose them up like Palm leaves for Easter.
Like the most beneficent trees.

This was the true history...
not those brutalized fragments
the outside world always
fought over
and then
took away.

They gave birth
to the spectacular
next chapters
and rocked them
into being more
and more every time
they were in their arms.