A Eulogy to the Earth

It's harder to trace the path a teardrop makes In the dirt of a dark brown cheek Than a white one But the colors of the world will reek of misery all the same The rivers of the world will flush flame red One last time tracing the path a raindrop makes On the bed of dark brown soil Only to spoil and dry in desert dust Because there's just aint no more water Because brown never did let drop reach the end of the cheek Before it got wiped away By the hand of the desert wind To the Earth Because it is not only white people With dreadlocks and flower crowns that will miss you when you're gone It is not just the sweet death of hippie LSD free dancing music festivals That will sing graveside at your service Not just Jessica and her open backed funeral dress and witchy woman vibes That will cry and bless your wake Not just Jake In his Patagonia jacket and Subaru with roof rack carrying the casket Or grandma Samantha and her gardening club sitting in the pews You will be mourned by far more than this I will sit clenched fist, head held high and lips stitched shut So "I told you so" Doesn't slip out over the Broccolini at following reception And outside of the spectacle in the Connecticut church They make to convince themselves they cared The world will cry My friend You were loved By more than just the people who killed you You will be missed By more than just the people who told us we were not allowed to see you Before the blacks were forced to fill city blocks got redlined into boxes They knew you Were largely responsible for anything that grew in this land Neither of us loved the extortion but there were days the sun baked us together When the weather turned rain we would both rejoice The boys would stomp up and down and knead your wet skin You'd throw up a thin splatter of blood the same ruddy color as their feet The oceans rose up to meet my ancestors off the passage The tacit choice to side with your deep over their shallow Neither of us wanted any part of this ending Somewhere on the continent The arms of a Baobab tree will be bending up to the sky asking you to come back There will be black people beneath that tree doing the same People who knew your name Muttered it long before your famed grand exit You were loved By more than just the people who killed you You will be missed By the people who were told they could not see you Like the true warriors of a million different tribes Who died heaving a sigh of disgust Knowing full well what happens when the people lose their Elder Their knowledge The solid foundation that comes with being a part of your land The understanding that comes from our mother The cardinal directions Large sections of open land known only to the eagle eyes Or the shock wave that fans out from a drum in the night by the fireside People who knew you People who, if any of us bothered to hear would tell us How and what to fix What I am saying is Though I am half flower crown, half town hopping road trip hippie Though my blood sticky feet show you more than some Though my Pontiac in the parking lot comes complete with sun roof and roof rack I will want you back when you are gone You will be missed By the Americas, and Africa and the Southeast Asians By every nation, the indigenous and the ripped out pages of history books By the village fisherman's hooks and forest floor cook fires By the tired fighters who share your death You were loved By more than just the people who killed you You will be missed By the people who were praying to God that this world would see you