Boundary eradicator. Folklore Queen.
Happy Birthday to Nobel Prize winning author TONI MORRISON.
Category Archives: civil rights
a whole Love – thinking of Mari Evans
Loving on Mari Evans today
July 16, 1919 – March 10, 2017
elements of a poem
“Seeds” a poetry video performance
The Making of Mississippi Window Cracks
(the prologue to Mississippi Window Cracks written in 2006)
A few years ago I decided that after all the books and movies I had read and seen related to the civil rights struggles and the state called Mississippi, it was time to take a visit. I arranged to spend a few days in Jackson, Mississippi, with a colleague of mine so I could walk the land that enveloped the energy of Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Margaret Walker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Emmett Till and the streets of the infamous “Freedom Summers”. My time there was filled with meeting civil rights heroes that are still alive, pouring libation on slave plantations, visiting museums and other historic sites, relaxing on the porch fanning flies until the sunset, and of course the southern cuisine.
One morning, my friend declared she knew the best place in town for a good bowl of grits. Upon arriving at the cozy, corner diner downtown, she turned the car off and told me to put a crack in the window. I told her that living in Los Angeles, people really didn’t do that but I remember it from growing up in Kansas City, Mo. Effortlessly, she rolled a crack in the driver’s side window. I followed hastily already tasting the buttery grits in my mouth. She turned and looked at me then spoke with hesitance in her voice.
“What’s that?”, she asked.
“What’s what?”
“I thought you were going to put a crack in the window.”
“I did.”
“That’s a crack?,” she asked sarcastically.
Now feeling totally self conscious I affirmed, “Yeah, this is the kind of window crack I used to do in the summertime in Kansas City.”
“Well this ain’t Missouri, this is Mississippi! You better put a bigger crack in that window as hott as it is out here!”
I gave the handle on the window a few more turns to open it up.
She encouraged me, “A little more.”
I carefully cranked it until I gained her nod of approval, “Like this?”
“Yeah! Now that there is a Mississippi window crack!”
The funny part about this story is how serious it got! It was almost a borderline argument. But as we walked in the diner, we laughed and joked how that would be a good title for a poem and who was going to write it first. Well, here is my book of short stories that chronicle the tales fed to me through the trees, music, and people I met during my time spend in Jackson. Instead of vacationing in the Bahamas or Paris, take a visit down in the deep south to a part of history, your history, our history. You ever heard the saying, “There’s the United States and then there’s Mississippi?” It’s the truth! Go feel it for yourself!
with love,
nikki skies
PS – The grits were delicious!
writing
Happy Birthday Champ!
The Greatest of All Time!
alpha to omega, Happy Birthday Dr King
Speak up
Write up
Sing up
Dance up
There are no safe places for artists to hide when inequality and injustice exist. Let’s continue to create and present the world with “the possibilities” of love and freedom.
“Keep Moving Forward”
Thank you for EVERYTHING you and your family sacrificed for this world, this nation and for humanity. We remember you on your birthday Dear Sir!
Dr. Welsing…You too shaped me
I’ll listen for you in summer seashells
Maybe the small ones with cracked corners
from adult play of wave jumping
Slide cups alongside walls anticipating your
metered tone that started slow
but always stirred brown gravy right with potatoes
or mashed breath
Just Return.
My path hasn’t fit my shoes since
You labeled my questions of “why” as
Brilliance.
Since you encouraged my genetic pool
be developed 2nd to none
My broad back makes swimming easy
it’s the walking with familiar faces with forced tongues and
foreign feelings of living that’s hard
And you promised you’d never rest until
“black children are taught to love themselves as themselves”
Well… we still dance around the pain
And sing above the screams
And get high above the clouds
And fall below the bedrock
And you left like all the rest
without a formal goodbye or wave of the scarf
while the system is still electric with
hidden hands and privileged referees
Just Return.
for one more cooking lesson and hands in the dish water
and a soothing stare to still these fears
of polishing your legacy with highly functional thinking
toothbrush details of the Isis Papers and Keys to the Colors
Dr. Welsing Mother Frances
We We We stumble with this
stutter with the thought of your walk
to have your heart weighed to a feather
cause you promised you’d never rest until
“black children are taught to love themselves as themselves”
so I suppose…as long as the system maintains
itself against the thread of our fabric
You are here
I’ll listen for you through my cups on the wall
and inside summer seashells with cracked corners.
- For Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, 1/3/16
Nikki Skies 