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Sunsets, Chemo, War, Prayers, Venus, Music and Squealing Pigs….

Giving Thanks for saying yes to Andre Fenton and Rebecca Thomas’ Spoken Word Intensive!   Honored to be with Andre and Rebecca, Nova Scotia’s finest! Giving thanks for this small community of writers as we dive into guided practices, sharing vulnerable short plunges into self.  Making one of last night’s practice into my 30 minute/30 day morning practice.  

Write as many nouns as you can in three minutes. Include these nouns in a free write piece….

Capturing sunsets and roosters in between journal pieces. Salt and curry on lips. Wind breezing through magenta patterned curtains. Dad there is war in the air, the kinda war that we cannot turn our hearts and minds from, like we do with countries we think don’t concern us. Dear Yemen we are sorry, so sorry; you are like the education we never got, genocide in our own country. The world built on the backs of Black people by imperialismhimself, the same kinda wars fighting today. They are us and we are them. Fan is working barely just like the squealing pigs outside the court house the day Theo and I married (nope no bad omen there). Saffron our one eyed cat meows into prayers sent out to dear brother Pazo, the exhaustion of chemo wiping him horizontal, rest dear brother rest.  I think of sending him music; Buju’s Blessed, Jimmy’s Many Rivers; Leonard’s Tower of Song. Dali Lama playfully watching me from a wall in need of fresh paint. Books circling Honoree’s The Love poems of W.E.B. Du Bois, Ros’ Book of Delights, Richard’s There Are No Bad Parts. We need to call an electrician to find out what’s going on with the dancing lights. Chicken hawk or owl? Burnt peach Venus bowing humbly, glorious flesh. In the fridge, half a paw paw waiting for spoon.  Throb of right heel just iced. Belly bouncing butterflies contemplating the uncertainty of life as we know it. The ocean, a get up and look out the window away.  A parrot perched ontop the golden apple tree. These hands like winter tree branches. Mango pits sucked clean. Peaches come to mind, velvet. Cement ripped torn split crumbled, images of war. Does one forget about sunsets and sunrises in the midst of survival?

Journal            venus

Ocean             books              owl butterfly               times

prayers            wind

Fan      sunset             salt                  curry    electricity

Rooster dawn

Wind   music              velvet              hands              heels

Cement                       education       parrots            dali lama         dad

Sea                  war

Breeze             mango            pawpaw          saffron

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