-
Frustration Denied
I often tire
of fighting
for a people
in their enemies
even more
than their enemies
believe in themselves.
It is not easy
to work
toward
the enlightenment
of a people
hell-bent
on destroying themselves
as a personal favor
to those
they seek validation through
and even a semblance
of conditional love
from,
a people determined
to live
with their murderers,
rapists,
diseducators,
destroyers,
to sleep with them,
to eat out of their plates
and off their floors.
We have
grown comfortable
in
the company
of death.
It is hard
to make a people understand
an innate evil
that thrives
on chaos
when they only recognize
that other’s “truth.”
It is not easy
to be Afrikan
in an anti-Afrikan reality.
It wears at you.
It tears at you.
It can make you question
the depth
of your sanity,
the purpose
of your mission.
It makes peace
nigh impossible.
But I
would rather die
a warrior
in service
to my ancestors
and descendants
than live
the lie
of a slave
fallen
to the unrelenting pressure
of europeans, negroes and lost souls
calling us
to commit treason
against the Creator.
Spirit
is what I answer to.
Spirit
is what strengthens me
through my weariness.
Struggle,
with vision,
produces resilience.
It creates power.
It brings a warrior’s peace,
a peace that lies
only
on the battlefield of justice,
not the bed
of forgiveness
and forgetfulness…
forgiveness
will not cease
their destruction
and
if we forget
we will not
be able
to find our way home.
To be engaged in battle
when what the enemy has already done
to our souls,
minds,
bodies
should have made
any revolutionary thought
impossible
is how
I know
we have already won.
The Universe
does correct itself
(through us).
Ma’at is justice.
Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti
