memory in movement/the groundings with my mothers

by MIGUEL BYRD
in Fall 2023

Vincent Hunter, Carriage, 2011

memory in movement

egungun

it is we, who

wear the masks

honoring our ancestors

the Dunbars of

Barnwell, South Carolina

Butler, Brooks

Ruth did not stop

hearing the drum

when she heard the

machines of the North

---

the groundings with my mothers

a summer spent

in Detroit

with two

ancestors living

through a migration

trying not to be-                    

come motown

than country.

1998, protecting

me from the

fragmenting

of my home.

not a paradox

but a sense

beyond them

told them, to

instill that we

can find home

in spirit, anywhere

if we sit and

re-member that

movement is not

always departure

from self

since the sun moves

every day. in 4

moments, we

changed to

remain the

same, eternal

---

Miguel is a 5th grade history teacher from Elizabeth, New Jersey. His love of poetry was reignited when he spent several weeks teaching the art form to second graders last school year. The enthusiasm and willingness around poetry that his students expressed sent him back to revisit the works of Sterling Allen Brown, Sonia Sanchez, and René Depestre. He spends his time away from teaching focused primarily on reading literature dealing with who Africans are to each other, working towards ways to apply conceptual categories from the Africana Studies framework to each lesson plan.