TIME CAPSULE

Fola Onifade

Power. Peace. Prosperity. That’s what I pray for my people when I go to sleep at night. I dream a sisterhood that does not encourage sameness and uniformity, But celebrates difference, elevates uniqueness and calls it unity.

I dream of my brothers growing old, Planting gardens with their stories, Leaving legacies of love—the kind that heals generations.

I dream of babies’ laughter

Bubbling from healthy stomachs, Eyes as wide as the Earth they’ll inherit.

I dream of their inheritance, What we’ll leave behind for the future:

The moringa, the indigo, the palm oil, the yam, the rice, the cotton, The High John, the kola nut, the playing cards, the cowries, The stories whispered over salted waters, The hope of a people birthing themselves on new land, The wisdom caught with the tip of the tongue, The drum, the boom bap, the sample echoing a voice from the great beyond, The music of a people with a song to sing, The recipes, the green books, the scriptures underlined with secret meaning, The routes mapped out to freedom—

I dream the babies taste a liberty so sweet, they’ll know, they’ll just know Somebody loved them, And some where in time, we pray for this.