But in the everywhere yesterday i must ask black fathers
If you could turn back time and attend to opportunities lost
Would you have paid more attention
to those brother uncle cousin clan & neighborhood fathers
that left history stained by marks of dread & puzzle piece infernos of pain
would you have paid more attention and blocked those fathers
by offering alternative paths where pain didn’t interrupt growth
& keep children from languishing in a security of love & teddy bear dreams
in praise & remembrance of black fathers everywhere
living in some hovel where poverty lingered like maggots on a corpse
supporting self-hatred married
To crime
no place to be somebody
in a drop dead nigga world
where a starved intellect
kept its’potential from the light
but
still here
weather beaten broken driven crazy contrite
yet unable to go sweetly into a transformative night
in praise & remembrance of black fathers everywhere
that prayed hard on bended knees
and were not afraid to surrender their lives
fighting back countless times against the intolerance
of brotherhood & each stalemate of righteousness detouring
hope
let us praise & remember black fathers everywhere
they
us
we
that still became doctors
lawyers
dream weavers
teachers
ministers
councilors
protest marchers
defiant agitators against injustice
farmers share croppers pawns brick layers inventors artists
athletes factory workers soldiers politicians thinkers
or whatever trade or profession that could be achieved
becoming a man inside racism & hatreds’ weeds
