Africa taught me

There is a weighted Gift in this world.



There is a grief in the world that cannot hold all of the rocking moans and shrill death rattle cries that pierce the night sky, a heaviness I have felt in the very air, where I melted and tried to hold up the ceiling with pure prayer and heaving whispered tongues...because it felt like it would come crashing down on the bent necks in the tiny straw hut where she lay.

There is a sunrise for every darkness, new light piercing the decay of time, and it is willed into being by those who live in it, toil in it, sweat and labor in it.

(Where there was weeping, there will be dancing.)

Life must be spoken out, it must be breathed into the moist earth and heaved up into the sky with the rejoicing of what can't be seen. Life is written within the intricate steps of growth and weaving whirling patterns of celebration. Your hands find those of the woman or man next to you, and you are forced to look upon the raw physical tangible bodies around you and, in the shadows of firelight, under the unfamiliar night skies, you make this moment

every moment

the hurt, the pain

the victory and the relief from the burning of the sun

the new child and the grandmother who carries her while dancing by you

(every moment)

yours...

real.