A Lament for Black Memory

Aren’t you tired, God?
Tired of seeing my ancestors’ stories censored,

Buried in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean,
Burned on crosses in the cotton fields,
Banned from the shelves of libraries.

Words now deemed poisonous if spoken:
Black. Diversity. Equity. Woman. Queer.

Our stories, our identity, our culture
Hung and silenced, 
thrown into the sea.

God, do you refuse to see?
Have you, too, forgotten the history of the American slave,
both the taken and the builder of powerful nations,
both chosen by you and oppressed?

God, how can we heal if our truth is censored,
washed not in blood but in nationalism?
Our leaders were erased from museums,
their journeys sanitized,
their dreams remembered by only a few.

Even in this darkness, I remember who you are.

I trust in your will for righteousness.
I trust in your desire for justice, the same justice that split seas, flipped tables, and toppled thrones.

Let justice roll down like waters
and memory flow like an unending stream.

Release the cries of the mothers.
Free the fathers from their shackles.

Unleash the radiant joy of the children.
Give us power to take back our stories,
stories of sorrow, strife, and success.

Let us reclaim the songs of rivers and streams
and the courage to move mountains.

Give strength to the creators, cultivators, and curators 
of our history, written and unwritten.

Protect the truth-tellers—
journalists and historians,
teachers and storytellers,
librarians and poets.

Unearth the ugly underbellies hidden from our liberation.
Bless the whispers of the past
and the scars that speak within us.

Amen.