Listen, my heart is a soul drum
Beating the spiritual rhythms
Of the sojourning struggle of life—
Pumping pulsating blood inking
The notes of our story—flowing
From the past to the present—banked
In the here and now—waiting to cascade
Into the liberated future;
Yes, like an aged tree trunk, I am rooted
Here—anchored in the fertile soils—
Here, engaged in the struggles of freeing life.
Oh, the scars I bear are many; each being
A keloid memory of where I have been—each
A smooth raised and shadowed spiritual hope
Of where I am going when finished inking here.
Today, I now know that I am a child
Of a once lost race that is now found
And realized; a race destined to be forever free.
Oh, I know that I am a child of the rivers
Of blood—rivers fearlessly flowing free;
You see, I am as the night—pushing aside
The day—claiming my time now to be here, free.
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may not be;
Thus, today must be the joyous freedom advent.
Therefore, today I claim myself eternally free;
I am as in the beginning: wind, water, fire—
The light! I am all: I am the Word without end!