Black Lives Matter

Black lives matter.

They matter to every

brilliant, bright-eyed, 

brown-skinned child

and to the world they grace,

for their potential for joy,

for discovery, for fervent love

Black lives matter

to every mother, father, brother,

niece — all of the blood connections,

all the humanity,

all the strength developed

through undeserved oppression,

all the courage to stand together

against colossal odds

And Black lives matter

to the poverty of my whiteness,

to the cruelty of a system

which has given me the harsh role

of oppressor

Black lives matter

and if we whites can free ourselves

from our complicity, 

we, too, will taste

some of the sweetness

we’ve been parched for, all these years

We will learn kindness

in ways we’ve never known,

for kindness only thrives

where it can be unbridled, 

unmeasured, unwithheld,

where it flows freely

to wherever there’s a need,

To wherever there’s a bright child

who needs the world to know

her Black life matters,

(and Barbie, not a model for anything,

is just hard plastic)

One Black life can start to set us free.

Black lives matter to me.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 8, 2016