Black

A poem about the power and wisdom of Blackness

Photo: Katsumi Murouchi/Getty Images

I wish I was Black
Enough to glow purple
From within,
Amethyst
Hewn from rock,
Edged with gold.

Black is the color
Of wisdom, power, death,
Depth suspending
Light,
Like millions of stars,
Blinking at each other
Across eternity.

The color of thunder,
Dark and rumbling,
Strobing
Purple beams through clouds,
Like sudden inspiration
Smashing a blocked mind.

The smell of ancient earth,
Miles deep,
Dinosaur and neanderthal bones
Pressed
Precious over millennia,
Into gold, diamonds,
That will one day be
Desired, owned, stolen.

The feel of the deepest
Ocean fault-line,
Intense, thick with
Tension,
Cradling a planet’s secrets,
And beauty unseen,
Inside its velvety silt.

Blackness so deep,
So purple,
It magicks land into food,
Rock into gold,
Oceans into oil,
Songs into hearts,
The world into being.