PAN AFRICAN HEARTBEAT

To all the freedom fighters who knew the Alliance of Sahel States would see the light of day
To the legacy of our ancestors George Padmore, Dorothy Padmore , Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba
To the late Thomas Sankara

even though it is weary
even though it is Blue
even though it is fragile
even though from time to time
it now skips a beat
or two
even though it would like to rest
even though it has done its time
i will not bubble wrap
that Pan African heart
of mine

TELL US WHAT TIME IT IS?

We should be getting a report on Mumia’s health soon. Hopefully on Leonard’s health as well. This poem is dedicated to all those who stand poised to act if only they knew …in time …

there will be a time
when all will be said and done

there will be a time
when around a kitchen table
we will take stock
of time seized
and time unretrieved

there will be a time
later
when we will measure
whether
we acted in time

there will be a time
when threads of correspondence
will reveal
more than words
their gaps of silence

there will be a time
when green lights not given
in time
or letters of outreach
gone to “slow to respond”
will help tip the balance
of Mumia’s and Leonard’s fates in prison

let us know –
what time it still is?

EACH CAGED BREATH DRAWN

To Mumia and Leonard

Thanking Jenipher Jones

blinded by delusion
and hubris
the white supremacists imagine
they own
the ancestral and indigenous lands
they have stolen
but Mother Earth
patiently
stands vigil for us
and holds our ancient acres
in loving escrow

– and somehow
in a rare lucid flash
they know

so they steal
something they think
they will get to keep
something irretrievable
something as recurrent as the rain
in Gaza
they say they possess,
something unspeakably tortuous –
the Time
the lifetime
breath by breath
of our leaders
behind steel

each caged breath
drawn
is a second
lost

as Mumia says :
the time is now

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

PAN AFRICAN HEARTBEAT | TELL US WHAT TIME IT IS? | EACH CAGED BREATH DRAWN

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright