Signposts: The Ancestors' Trail

The Ancestors’ Trail

(Reflecting on the deaths of Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Vincent Harding, Nelson Mandela, and many, many more)

Our urge to

encircle them with

outstretched arms.

Irresistibly insistent.

We sheltered in the canopy of their lives.

A steady trickle of lights

dance, tumble

Dimming, but twinkling

Along the Ancestors’ Trail.

They are a new
Crowd
of lights
cheered and
embraced by the

cloud of witnesses

already there.

flickering,
glittering

on the Ancestors’ Trail.

They leave us with

Less music, less vision, less courage, less light.

Unless, unless

We scoop buckets of sorrow, absence, yearning and hope

Into the drinking gourd.

Slurp the promise to do as they did.

Exclaim.

Exhort.

Explain.

And
drunk with love,

Fight.

Signposts