while you're ahead…

February is Black History month, so here goes:

Won’t you be my sister (by Amanda Gorman, US Youth Poet Laureate)

Mark me as a ripple

Make me a piercing drop

Just so I can be but a note

Of froth at the lip of a wave,

In the roar of this cresting ocean.

Name me breath,

Know me as air

Dancing nude in the tree tops,

Just so I can be but a sigh

In the cry of this changing wind.

Call me heat,

Claim me red

Of flash writhing in fervor

Just so I can be but a spark

In the pulse of a newborn flame.

Hear me as a woman

Have me as your sister

On purpled battlefield breaking day,

So I might say our victory is just beginning,

That you and I are women

No longer trying to woo men

Holding the truth to be self-evident

That all genders are created equal.

See me as change,

Say I am movement,

That I am the year

And I am the era

Of the women.