The Ultimate Test

Caught in the Storm

“For one human being to love another is perhaps the most difficult task of all, the epitome, the ultimate test. It is that striving for which all other striving is merely preparation.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Interesting quote. When you boil everything down to its genuine purpose, it all seems to come back to love. Mankind prepares itself to understand what love is and how to exhibit that love. I think perhaps imperfection is not being without mistakes, but perhaps, being without love.

 
What if the Ultimate test, the promised land of sacrifice and endurance, is the preparation of ourselves to meet love in its purest form, where in comparison to such esteem that even the sun is but artificial light? Would not our struggles be worth it? The beauty of pure love, it is too much to fathom, “that striving for which all other striving is merely preparation.”

Guest Feature – The Blackman’s Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman- Shahrazad Ali

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• It is difficult to get her to listen to new information about a new approach to living her life because she is so certain that she is justified in being out of order. She is mostly a lot of mouth. She can be a number of things, as already proven, but she cannot be a man.
• By nature the Blackman cannot submit to the woman.
• All the good things she says she wants would be immediately available to her if she drops her defenses, drops her suspicions and allows herself to melt into the waiting arms of the man who loves her.
• When the Blackwoman attacks the Blackman publicly she inadvertently gives the entire world permission to attack him also.
• It is not easy for a Blackman to be motivated if his woman doubts him, or if their relationship is so stormy that it takes his head and robs him of the ability to concentrate
• The Blackman can tell which woman is his by the way she submits to his ideas and instructions. And by the way she works to make him happy. His Blackwoman should take the position that his success is her success—their success, and work as a team.
• By letting the Black man be the head of the family she could revive him, and by getting behind him and supporting him he could be free.

Stella

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“Raised under the protection of her mother and the field hands, Stella is unaware that she is a slave. Not being accustomed to hard labor, things change when Mama dies and she falls into the cruel hands of Marse Saddler. Years later, when The Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1864 allegedly abolishes slavery in the state, Stella learns of Saddler’s plan to keep her on the plantation. She then agrees to accompany Saddler’s daughter Miss Carla and her husband John, to The Windy City {Chicago} and learns the hard way the difference between slavery and freedom.” 

(This short story will be published to The PBS blog and is free to the public. Anybody who follows The PBS Blog can take part in the reading of the series every Friday beginning January 23, 2015).

 

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Never Having Been a Girl

This poem is based on a true story. A sista I know  requested I write a poem based on her childhood. And after hearing her testimony, this is the result.

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Silence lingers on every street corner of her heart
surrounded by the sounds of her own heartbeat
the only child
who knew that loneliness could be so loud?
Never remembering ever being a girl
womanhood emerging from her mother’s womb
responsibilities following her home wrapped in soft blankets and warm booties
yet infancy is kicked off too soon
removed
and replaced with scavenger instincts
tearing away at empty cupboards
hope falling asleep like heroine nods
quickly replaced with the tears of a three year old
silence tearing away at the soft eardrums of a toddler’s pride
never remembering ever being a girl
Quick paces of little feet turned nine
gotta get the cigarettes on time
crowded streets
little feet
unknown eyes that are watching me
(at least somebody’s watching me)
careful now these little feet
having never been a girl
Twelve times twelve,
twelve arrives
sadness in mommies cancer eyes
watch him do it and do it right
gotta give the medicine exactly right
the internal cries of that youthful voice (never really having been young)
somebody please tell me,
where is mommies tongue?
gotta carry cause mommies gone
will someone sing her daughters song?
The woman with the pink ribbons in her curls
the woman never having been a girl
Restaurants to wash myself
weed and drinks cause I watch myself
who cares for cute sinks when nothings left
seems like childhood just up and left
me sitting beside myself
empty benches now colored with the stench of my pain
smelly armpits reach out to beg for change
while relatives sit at home and count my change
whose willing to see this woman change?
Never having been a girl
Hustle proved its source of love
where does an instant woman find true love?
inside the arms of an abusive man she seeks her refuge from lazy hands
money giving light to dark places
apartment buildings giving substance to misplacement’s
where
where has it gone? My love? Where’s your part?
where oh where have you hidden my heart?
Numbers fade away like living water upon dirty dishes
this daughter of mine the result of these stitches
Entering the world as if she owns it!
Gotta hope another woman has not entered this world
praying my first child has the chance to at least,
just be
a girl.