Grammar Intentional

Started with hope. Soon, I sought rope. Physical changes. Life rearranges. Found some new passion. Took some tough lashings. Wrote myself sad. Wrote myself glad. Dreams of perfection. Took new direction. We need an election. Driven into mad sections. It all is so scattered. Folks so sacred our lives matter. So scared of my skin. That erases my grin. Black to where we begin. Before King, we begin. We have to win. Or lives may just end. Masks are pulled on. Masks are thrown off. It’s the way of this land. Not just in the South. People cough, heave, and die. The rhetoric flies. I still look for my center. Need my emotional center. Legacy building. Keep trying, God willing. Can’t always tell. Feels like I might fail. Feels like I might be. Be ready to flee. Feels like I might know. Know I’m ready to go. Go change my life flow. Somtimes those around. Thought they were with. Found they weren’t down. Not just what they said. What they never did. Must’ve been stuff. That they barely hid. I’ll live ’til I die. For my Loves, I will try. My hair–still wavy. My skin–summer brown gravy. Hips still wide, just a bit. Thank goodness pants fit. My mind–still spinning. Still dream of winning. Teaching in my view. Learning is, too. Is what I know ever enough for you? Is what I need to know still in a vast sea of what I need to see? I still want to trod a red rug. I still need the true distanced hug. We lost some of the great ones. Some who’ve known me from day one. Some who set the scene in this nation. That helped Shades rise to their station. To them I say “Thank You!” For all that you did do. For every mountain you scaled. For everytime you were jailed. For every knock that you took. Left you out of school books. Yet God still elevates. ALL the True Goods and The Greats! Vivian, Lewis, and Harrell. Without them, our roads would’ve narrowed. My road would’ve narrowed. My life, far more harrowed. Today, I do feel able. Though, not always stable. I just had to get this out. In case my heart goes into drought. ‘Cause I may never speak again. Summer 2020. My God. Amen.

Thinking of my Beautiful Ivy Beyond the Wall, Helen Peppers Harrell, Statesman and Freedom Fighter John Lewis, and God’s Warrior for Justice Rev. C.T. Vivian. This has been a Summer of Mountains. Trusting God for Peace in the Valley… ❤🙏🏽❤

Touch, Torch, and Eternity

What A Word Inspiration provided by Portia Bright Pittman, Stacy Jarrell, and Pansie Flood

*Inspirit, Jubilant, Change

Saints gifted to Inspirit a world 

Bring life to broken weary hearts and bones that are

Struggling to find any home to lay down  burdens 

These humble paragons lift up those who have wrestled night and day

With the evil myths an rifts in a world of  perceived Godlessness 

The Jubilant messengers, soulful sojourners soothe, cajole, enliven and smear ointments of peace and joy on the one or the hoard of faces marred and bodies stoned

And they

Pour libations for the nations

They are 

Angels wrapped in flesh

Disguised with smiles that pierce, confuse, and beguile the cloaked demons 

That lurk just outside the periphery 

Or boldly walk unashamed 

Within the territories

Change conditions

Undeterred, these Torch Bearers of Night, Bringers of Light that 

Helping others pull dreams into fruition

Wizened warriors spanning eons of the holiest traditions

Who lift blood, clay, and breath towards the sky 

That those who live ’til they die might one day

Know the sweetest by and by and by and are 

Now measured in divine plans of forever

Good Friday Song

What A Word Inspiration provided by Raymonda Peele, Tanisha Hines-Johnson, and Jean Lovett Cahoon

*Extortionate, Contraption, Committment

The Extortionate cost of our souls

(For we were unworthy)

Bought with the richest form of love 

Stripped from scores of tears and welts and bleeding sores

Pinned to planks, pierced, and pressed with

Unforgiving points

The monumental sacrifice 

Of purity for sin stain

That we might live again

No greater love 

No greater Committment 

For He never left

He never left

Hung upon that 

Vile Contraption 

That we now kneel before

Seasonally draped in white, purple, red

We Pray, Praise, Adore

And oft we never conceptualize 

The wretched tears and cries

Of people we claim we despise

Neighbors, Family, Friends

Faceless citizens

We hoard land, money, power

But my Savior hung for hours 

That we might cross boarders

That once held us in this graveland

Yet we pinch what we’ve been given

Merciless souls of flesh living

But two things He asked of thee

To love His Father eternally

To love each other as if we see 

Ourselves as them 

Again and again

Temporal Rift

I’m floating in a pocket outside of time

Though perhaps you see me

Because I seem to be

Here

Skin, hair, teeth, and bone

Roam the world

Yet often, my essence rumbles in a temporal rift 

A space that I inhabit when I am terrorized by the thought that the pieces I’ve left in real time will make no difference in the place I’m thought to be

While I peep from the pockets where I store my insecurities

I try to hurry, that I might return to the rest of me 

To create my illusion of free…

Temporal freedom

Temporary freedom

No time…no time…

No peace of mind can ride this temporal stream alone, intact

In fact…

If I could move up and down the continuum to control my fear

If I could stop and restart tears and fears

If I could control the gift

I could avoid my journey to the rift

The trip that sends me adrift into the darkness layered carefully between light 

Where I try to build up the inner fight

To ride a train of temporal courage

That will not wane

To leave a legacy that will play sweet refrain

Long beyond my footprints stain 

The earthly floors that do remain…

In the meanwhile 

I do as I do

I pray that one day

It be enough…

I preach comfort

I teach conciousness 

I build carefully 

(Fear and trembling)

I scream “I think of thee and these! Are you pleased? My God, are you  pleased?”

Is God pleased?

Forgetting nothing…

Am I forgetting anything?

Yet when pain sets in

I run again

Into the rift

And the angel stands guard

While I store and discard the pain

And ask the Spirit to reign 

And restore me whole…

Temporal trials fade

Temporal trials fade

This is as God has made

This is as God has made

Continue reading →

I want God
This God
Who created
These brave souls
Souls that lived and fought for us
Those He covered and preserved in bold
I want God
This God
Who pieced
Strong people together
The God who carried
Them through tempestuous storms
To survive the most treacherous weather
I want God
This God
Who answered
My ancestors’ plea
A God who continues
To strike the demons down
To build my equity
I want God
This God
Who puts no other man before me
Who values sun burnished skin
And restores complete
My hard fought dignity
I want God
This God
Who continues to renew my hope
And for accursed dream killers
He fashions his unyielding stiff rope
Not one of the mortal stock
Of the many who claim his name in mock
For those indeed will not be going
To the land that is only made
For those who spoke a truth
Of love and care for fellow dust
And lived lives of full and righteous proof
I want God
This God
Who knit together those who love and give
Who advocate for dreams of the meek
As long as this earth lives

Glory lasts always. Rest in peace, Brother Soldier Representative John Lewis. Rest in peace, Brother Soldier Rev. C.T. Vivian. Sleep in God’s peace and our ancestors’ embrace

Written by Regina Y.C. Garcia, 07/26/2020

Higher Ground

There’s a trauma that sometimes sickens me
It sits in my cells, having traveled in generations of collective memory
Finds my own consciousness and whispers
“You cannot be free; your time’s almost up; there’s nothing more you can say or be
That makes a difference

Vile liquid churns in my stinging throat and
Fear grabs hold my fighting hope and
Stills my movement and hides my rope
To stop my climb
And all I want to do is find
Before the world finally sputters and unwinds
That heralding voice that lifts and resounds
“This is the way to Higher Ground”
Put my feet on that Higher Ground…
Plant my soul in Higher Ground…
Lord, just let me feel the thrill of Higher Ground!

Written by Regina YC Garcia, July 13, 2020

HigherGround

Today is the 4th
And I will claim peace
As I pray to my God
That my angst will decrease
Today is the 4th
And today I still weigh
Whether protestations for equality
Will ever hold any sway
Today is the 4th
But what does that mean
When carotid chokeholds still murder
Unarmed Black and Brown dreams
Today is the 4th
A day for which many of my ancestors
Bravely and hopefully fought
While others of my progenitors
Were trafficked, sold, and bought
Today is the 4th
And I want so badly to sing
But notes of antiblackness
Still dampen Freedom’s ring
And people still feign ignorance
Don’t understand why they shouldn’t cheer and jeer “red skins”
Or why they should welcome “huddled masses”
Who dream to enter in
And further question anger from those who’ve had an overfill
Of decades of trauma beyond the 4th
That have made liberty unreal

However…

Today I WILL celebrate the 4th
Not for what it is, but for what could one day be
I will claim in faith and work
That we can all be free
In law and soul and spirit
We will strive for all-the-better
We must believe it’s possible
That we can craft and fashion and tether
A way that we might celebrate
A National July 4th
A Freedom Party
Genuinely
Together

Regina YC Garcia, July 4, 2020

So on today, I just want to stop and reflect on the concept of “freedom” as it exists in this land, particularly with the boundaries of the United States. On June 19, 1865, approximately 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was given, the word regarding the freedoms that had been established on January 1, 1863 finally reached Texas. This, as it relates to the physical freedom from bondage, is the date that those, who were once counted as 3/4 human, were no longer required to toil on plantations, within homes, or anywhere else within the United States without pay. The awareness of this commemoration, in recent years, has become a celebrated occurrence even outside of the state of Texas, as many around the United States continue to ponder and insist on ever increasing freedoms, equity, and equality for all. Therefore, it is fitting that we celebrate what has happened, as well as consider what needs to happen in order that we might better dwell in peace, prosperity, freedom, and unity.

For more on the history of Juneteenth, check out the following link: https://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm

Music for a Movement

For Those in the Struggle: Juneteenth Edition

Listen

All ye people

Who are from peoples

Who’ve come from earth and bone

Who have worn sackcloth and ashes

Ye and they who are full of blood

And salted water

That stream from the most convenient

Orifices

Lest ye think that the struggle is

Yours

Alone

Look around

At the flesh that surrounds

And know that we struggle together

For some among you will lead

And some will be led

As our ancestors were

Along the Ivory Coasts

In Jewish Ghettos

In Roman Prisons

Labor Camps

Internment Camps

Death Camps

In the Dens of Lions

Or lying with the enemy

They/We that struggle

And live

And die

And rise again

Today I think of one people

Who were in a struggle

A great fight

To stay Free

And then

To stay alive

And then

To win a war

And then

To survive the faux freedom

Inflicted by another people who struggled with

The fear of the newly falsely freed

Tied them to trees

Brought to their knees

For an eternity

Until

The Divinity who saw the weeping and gnashing

Mixed up a recipe for men and women

Who seek to rescue and free other men and women and themselves (simultaneously keepers and liberators)

A New Movement of People

Who know that they

Are not greater that the

Divinity who made them

But through Powerful Divinity

They/We, those of us concerned with freedom from brutality and withheld equality

Those who see the importance of Equity

For those lacking the privilege that allows others to see

Full life and liberty

Still seek to alter the struggle

Of those whose spirits are distended

From the malnourishment of a diet lacking in justice

Replete in exclusion and isolation from the Dream

of all those who struggle, struggle to achieve

And lest ye flesh weary souls

Sick with the rejoicing of the victory forget

The captivation, humiliation, emancipation, no forty acres

(Just an observation)

Segregation, degradation, King’s motivation, some integration,

Lyrical, spherical, academic, vocational amalgamation

Lest ye forget

Forgetting creates a monster which is blind in its strike

Unbiased in its venomous bite

Despises the yellow, brown, black, and white

Cloaks in the tapestry of intemperate thought and speech

I must stop before I say what I cannot…

For all in the struggle

Learn from the struggle

Of all

Lest you struggle

In vain

Regina YC Garcia, Juneteenth 2020