it's okay to dream

it's okay to dream

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

I remember the first time I got caught stealing

Not by the police or some rent a cop
I was too good for that.

I got caught by my mother.

I was nine.

I'd left my baby sister on the playground by herself to go "shopping" with my crew.

As soon as I got back
the baby was gone.
1,000 shaded eyes stared down on me

damning me for losing her.

Then I heard my mother's voice cutting through the rime and grind
of the asphalt and concrete.

I was descending into hell eleven stories up.
Felt it as soon as I told my boys
"I gotta go."

She searched my pockets
Match Box cars
and candy bars.

My booty belonged to her now.  

She beat me

rested

then beat me again.

By thirteen the cars were real

so were the bullets that laid out my father.

He warned me that it was the inevitable end of vagabonds and kings

prison and death.

My father's father saw different in me.

What do you want be son? he'd ask.

Everything that they say I can't.

Then lemme tell you what I learnt from another ol' Southern minister

"“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

He also said

Read

Read and pray

only thing a soul's allowed to do freely in prison and church.

Another lesson from that other southern minister.

Now I stand before the rainbow he dreamed of everyday.

Shirt and tie.
Glasses.
I am my grandfather's reflection
my father's fury sated

most days.

Take out your books I say.

They grumble and stumble at times

unflinching I say

Let's read.