a poem by Gabrielle Price

My sisters and brothers are black,
And some are yellow, red, and white…
Many have feathers; others, scales and fur,
Some worship money but the best of them prefer,
To live with enough; and believe enough is a feast.
Hard truth for western man – in the belly of the beast.

Hard truth includes that rich or poor doesn’t matter,
not to birds of one feather that all bleed the same.
Murmeration: the meaning of something deeper;
That true hearts beat wild, unabashed and fierce,
When we seek to be our relative’s keeper.

What happens to them, happens to me,
More bad now than good in the land of the ‘free’.
Real freedom is earned not with money or gold,
But sacred truth; whispered words, howls and winds
that devour every flag and PR myth ever sold.

The American Dream skips like a broken record,
Corporate DJ’s are paid to keep it in rotation.
Echoing for eons, in the minds and hearts of my kin;
To question empire : sane to my chosen family,
To deny the myth : the original American sin.

My chosen family I’ve grown to respect and admire.
Beautiful teachers that groove with critical thought.
Underground records speak truth, and nothing but.
Western seekers will grasp, finding it eludes them
in a cellophane culture so easily bought.

Yet it is this epic place in history my relatives chose
To engage in sacred work, without repeating a script;
But through telling our wild stories, song and prose.
Not to burn the broken record but to keep the new one
To serve as reminder : that we will never sell our souls.

_________________________________________

Gabrielle