On the second birthday of my grandson Mikki - June 16, 1991 - poem - Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry

African American Review, Spring, 1993 by Trellie L. Jeffers

You are not an endangered species; You will not die from an overdose of drugs Or be murdered in the streets by your own brother. You will not become a prisoner caged while your genius rots like a dead animal on a country road.

Like all life, there is purpose for your being: Perhaps you bear a cure for cancer or AIDS or human madness - The kind that depletes the enthusiasm of little black boys, which teaches that they can only dance or chase a ball but cannot handle a microscope or stethoscope.

My little delicate petal, Plucked from the annals of human misery: You have descended from Charles Drew, Daniel Hale Williams, Percy Julian, Harriet Tubman, Mary Bethune, and Barbara Jordan. I will therefore shield you from the blistering Alabama sun which burns black brains to dust And scatters them in abandoned cotton fields.

With my love, you will grasp evil around its throat; Hold it till you feel the rigidity of its death. You will teach the world that genius knows no color, And that the sanctity of life intricately binds us each to the other. For what does it matter who stops the wars, Or houses the homelessness or feeds the hungry? Does the day hold more value than the night?

Come to me small specimen of my genes. Hold out your hand. Take this self-love I give to you, And let it be your great beginning.