by Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte
Water no get enemy. If water kill your child, water you gon use. – Fela Kuti
//
We dance clockwise on the mound wind
dampening locs curls and wampum
dangling from limbs and leather
sage cedar eucalyptus smudge
the children of wind and water
as they dance upon
the back of the great turtle
We salute the four
directions make plain
our petition for the end
The pale ones see the tide rise
barrel toward us laughing
They are fools lacking
a word to synthesize justice equity and empathy
They fear the water wind earth and fire
Water wind earth fire
are our grandmothers
We their children
dancing clockwise on the mound
direct our grandmothers
down the inlet
past the dirt roads smoke shops gas stations
to the estates coal plants
yacht clubs country clubs
county executive offices that let our peninsula flood
We their children
watch the grandmothers
grind concrete marble stained glass
steeples maybachs bikram yoga mats
into a fist soaked with flame,
fingers unfurl
and tear the feathers
out of the orange toupee
sitting on a bald scavenger
We their children
feel the heat and water splash our faces
the gravel and debris churn midair
scratching
our bodies
This cycle dies
the water rises aflame
a mound
of reparation
come to collect that bounced check.
We celebrate with black and milds and red solo cups of Hennessy.
Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte (formerly Veit Jones) is a poet, educator, organizer, and marketer whose creative work operates in the continuum of the Black Arts Movement, using a multi-disciplinary praxis rooted in Afro-Indigenous folklore and Hip-Hop culture. Prolific has been published in African Voices, The Inquisitive Eater, 12th Street, the graphic novel Gunplay, and YRB Magazine. Tim was a Riggio Fellow at The New School and is a graduate fellow of The Watering Hole. Edwaujonte is from Uniondale (Long Island), and lives in Bed-Stuy.