Rememberance - Tumblr Posts
U.S.S.R (Ukrainian Remembrance)
i am in love with the way she says Ukraine like it’s not a place but a presence & the little trill in the back of her throat where it resides, waiting to be released. on the way home she tells me home is not a home anymore, or what it used to be; i’m not sure of the translation. she remembers as a child living somewhere that wasn’t here & how it felt to have to lose her words to find new ones. i am ashamed that i love her voice so much when for her it means she will never belong but there is nothing i can do to tell her. now blue-blonde-purple hair swings in my face as she turns the key & opens the door into a world of 33 letters, made up of people fleeing from the past. her accent stays in the air with me long after the door closes on all her words, shut in the back of my throat. i try out the sounds in my mouth to find they aren’t as strange as one would think & that maybe a presence could live inside all of us if we let it, or learned to grow to love it. inside they rejoice because 24 years ago an empire crumbled to its knees. now they celebrate to the sound of the warbling voice of time singing along to old national anthems, only it can’t remember all the words so instead it just sings freedom, freedom, freedom & hopes everyone understands.
she
learning the heat of the world before for your mature enough to handle it. it's never our fault. she wasn't ready. as our body recycles into the earth, so does the soul. dreams intact. never restless. at peace.
if you don't do anything else today,
Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.
have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.
and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.
black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.
if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.
This is Juneteenth.
white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.
Let the torch-light lead your way
to the crossroads where fresh fruits and flowers lay.
Gently crawling fog, it whispers,
surrounding us, dancing sisters.
The raven of coal feathers flutters
above the heads of my dear brothers.
If you listen, all the living sounds with croon;
the revered forest, hills and the waning moon.
A memory embodied by a candle-flame;
none shall grow forgotten, call them each by name.
In my ebony hair the wreathed yew,
as death entwines with something new.
Emily Yvonne
Hurts