Each year my hands look more like my father’s:
scars of a yesterday, but palms up to tomorrows,
knuckles dug in rusted earth to loose the saplings. Follow
the hollows to the trunks and wrap my arms around the sorrow.
And the seeds that I will sow slow as the earth turns will be
the snares that strip the ankles, (trip to hide me from the half-truths,)
the garden, hard and soft, holding me, older than the oak trees.

Mama didn’t raise no fool.
Each year my feet look more like my mother’s:
heels feel for days before and toes hold to the next end,
pounding out the sounds of freedom, loud and out the quicksand,
kicking down the rocks to talk the language of the wetlands.
And the paths I will travel spring up ringing with their own voice,
rolling over stones and soles, (fast awake, in-tune,)
rising from the dust to trust themselves with their own noise.

Mama didn’t raise no fool.
Each year our eyes are looking more like someone else’s:
taking in the things they string together through distraction.
We burn what we learned in urns to piece together action,
or mistake a greater dose of hope for peace and satisfaction.
And I sustain the pain and shame of the slings and the arrows
launched from the mouths of folks that I once thought I knew.
Yes, I’ve known love but not how to love in spite of these blows,
so I keep on and hope I learn to.

For now?
Course I can hear ‘em, but I can’t listen
to folks who have the curse of sight without the gift of vision;
they’re deep as summer puddles, just as easy to see through, and
Mama didn’t raise no fool.