I never had the chance
 to know her, to feel her . . .
to drink in her sweet fragrance,
one her’s alone
I was too young and
her song ended  too soon

Yet my uncle cried
when he spyed my braids
“your airs are her’s, “
as his fingers touched me
as his eyes misted
in tearful recognition

Through the passage of years
I trembled . . .
as over and over I’de hear
the same words

The hand that stilled her breath
was her huband’s and
well I knew the bite
a lover can make

My hands reached
through misty years to join hers,
to listen to the messenge
she passed down . . .

In softest whispers she murmured,
“leave him my dearest-
learn from my shattered skull,
even unbroken it was no more
than tattered pieces . . .
hear from my ear,
ripped from my head,
speak words of freedom
with teeth smashed from my mouth -
you may be as I
but you are more,
the power I denied myself
is my legacy to you . . .

No child of ours will go
homeless, unloved, unwanted,
cast off by feral hands . . .
no child will stoop prematurely
from the weight of hard words,
or bruise because of them . . .
my child, on my whispered
words of freedom . . . fly