I, too, Am America

I was blown away last year, when I took a DNA test, which revealed that I am a composite of African, Native American, Iberian, Jewish, etc. That reality inspired the poem below the photograph.

I, too, am America

Because

I contain multitudes

Through me runs the blood of the colonizer and the colonized

The enslaver and the enslaved

The oppressor and the oppressed

I live on the borders of what is good and what is bad

I am broken but healing

An inherent paradox of pride and shame

Courage and Cowardice

I speak too loudly, yet carry that stick

In me exists the problem, but from me the solution

Oppressed voices gain volume

They shout against the wind

Blowing from the Right side of my mouth

Even as the Left sings their stories

Masses yearning to break their chains

Shackles I placed, yet bound on my wrists I stare through the veil and the veil stares back at me

I am a nation divided against myself and yet somehow I stand

Better angels whisper ways to dusky doorways

Pathways to light, stepping towards morning

My tears rain down on raisins in the sun

Swelling them to life

Washing the wounds

I stand on the precipice of morning, bleary in the brightness of possibility