As the blue moon climbs over the Potomac River,
I lay my tired body down next to the planted field.
Momma tells me that I’ll turn 13 tomorrow; my birthday wish….to be free
Like brail, the scars on my back speak to the humility in my life.
My dog Jip lays beside me and with a warm tongue conveys everything will be fine.

It’s the early fall here at Georgetown University
My name is Cornelius, Cornelius Hawkins and I write these words so you know my plight.
Here with me are my father, mother and 2 yr old sister.
We toil the field from dawn to dusk…the salt herring and cornmeal give us strength.
And my hands are forever clinging to this rosary and I pray God will hear my prayers.

I can’t begin to tell how afraid I am each and every day.
I try not to dwell on our strife and struggles, but day dream of downright happiness.
My family and our ancestors before us have been confined to slavery for 200 years.
Momma always says “There is no slavery, just ignorance”.
I hold her words near and dear to my heart and I never give up hope for a better life.

Do not feel small
Looking to the stars
And great constellations
In the night sky

Find solace there
For our sun too
Is just another distant star
In a constellation

Observed by curious minds
That hope to decipher its secrets

Had such a busy week
so exhausted I could barely speak
Needed to get up early on Friday for an important appointment
much to my disappointment my alarm glitched
maybe even caused by a power outage
Instead of making it to the appointment I was dreaming about it while
asleep in my bed.
Perhaps maybe I needed the rest really bad and that is why I overslept.
It might be my body's way of saying that I needed to slow down a bit.

The angels are falling under the weight of the clouds
helplessly fighting with a world
where good hearts are hiding
frightened by the malice around.

The angels are falling,
their wings are dissolving
under the tempest coming
from clouds of hatred and darkness.
Their bodies with the light of stars are dying,
their dreams turning to dust
swept by monsters
under the rugs we're stepping on
saying that everything is fine,
turning our heads,
pretending we're not seeing
that the angels are falling
and the monsters are cleaning the roads
to an existence
without dreams
without purity.

The sound of guns covering the voices
of the innocent children we used to be
blindly we're walking
lying to ourselves
that everything it's gonna be alright.

The angels are falling
and with their tears
we're drowning
in a sea of blood,
in the emptiness.

Forgetting is the only clarity.*

It was a day of forgetting.
No unquiet dreams or
casual reunions with the dead
who wander the halls of sleep,
the bodies of someone else’s loss.
No ghosts in the gazebo.
No echoes in the fading light.

Exiting sleep’s empty waiting room,
She woke. Blue sky blinked into her eyes.  
The room’s climate began to clear.
There was writing on the wall.
Old fragments came to closure.
The windows slowly turned to mirrors.

She fiddled. She soared.  
She played with her ancestors’ building blocks.
She lent a myth to god.
She stood in a garden with five black stones.
She foretold an eclipse,
Burned the witch of winter,
Stepped in the same river twice.

The moment froze.
Then there it was.
The compound inviolate paradox
at the heart of things,
the answer flickering in light and shade,
to the sound of a child’s voice,
then the roaring wind.
She chuckled as it faded to a point of light
then vanished, like the picture on an old TV,
Like the moon shrinking into the alarm clock’s face.

Her breath brewed clouds above her forehead.
She sat aloof in the empty air,
Alone in the immense morning,
At rest in this inviolable disconnection,
the clear cold innocence of now.

How wonderful you are Lord
That you made the stars in the sky
Like a lamp to an endless path
Like a thousand daffodils in a field

How wonderful you are Lord
That you made the vast oceans
Deep within are billion mysteries
A thousand stories not yet told

How wonderful you are Lord
That you made human, man and woman
Was perfect and free of will
But was lost, as sin began,

How great you are Lord!
For love was demonstrated at the cross
Gave Your only Son to save me
By grace, through faith, in Christ alone