Communal Gathering, Mourning, and Joy On the Black Family By June Jordan
we making love real they mining the rivers we been going without trees and going without please and growing on— on make-dos and breakthroughs to baby makes three’s a family ole Charlie knows nothing about out there where he burning the leaves and firing the earth and killing and killing we been raising the children to hold us some love for tomorrows that show how we won our own wars just to come in the night Black and Loving Man and Woman definitely in despite of all the hurdles that the murdering masterminds threw up to stop the comings of Black Love we came we came and we come in a glory of darkness around the true reasons for sharing our dark and our beautiful name that we give to our dark and our beautiful daughters and sons who must make the same struggle to love and must win
“On the Black Family” by June Jordan from The Essential June Jordan, edited by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller, Copper Canyon Press 2021. ©2021 June M. Jordan Literary Estate. Used by permission. www.junejordan.com
against the tyrannical soldierly sins of the ones who beatify plastic and steel and who fly themselves high on the failure to feel —they mining the rivers we making love real A SITE OF STRUGGLE 3
