Precipitation and Stormwater

Graphic by: Rania Omer

The waters that drowned my ancestors still live.

It's in the streams,

in your great lakes.

The harsh reality of hydraulics

gathering their souls in a cycle,

false hope of an ascension to heaven –

one way ticket to the land of the forgotten.

You hide from the anger in their screams,

storms turning solid ground to mud;

Their tears acidic in the rain aimed at the oppressor,

rendition of the Red Sea that washes their names in the flood. 

Metallic taste in my tap water,

history written in blood.

No two snowflakes are the same,

maybe that's why 

I see their spirits in the spikes of the snow,

their silhouettes in the shadows of the moon,

Melanated. 

Melding together 

frozen into an icy path

claiming the ocean that kept them separated.

Each flurry attacks 

a delicate snowfall backed by the force of the wind –

My eyelashes carry a percent of the animal chains that sunk below the waves.

Anchored.

Options between torture and death being the free–will of a slave.

And now their voices vaporize in the heat

heard by their generations and it’s unity

now splashing in the half–dried puddles

barefoot, drenched feet.

They’re basking in the April showers 

carrying over those who dreamed of us

into the soil, 

they rise again

blooming into flowers.