when we acknowledge the labor

* in gratitude to Elder Atum Azzahir *

there is work in living

in gathering, growing, harvesting, 
preparing, preserving,
weaving, building
washing, scrubbing
in drinking and leaving waste
in carrying, raising, nurturing 
protecting and healing
in listening, in deciding together
in knowing how we impact one another 
and knowing how to walk in the truth of it 

even grazing or catching prey,
or drinking sunlight and drawing 
minerals through thirsty rootlets, 
lives in careful calculation with 
storing enough sustenance to 
cushion a blossom of generations  

there is no exemption
to the labor of maintaining life 

our celebrations, our rituals, 
the beauty making sacred cover of our bodies
making meaning of our humanness

making home
where we lay our heads

is work

some of us worship a dream
of another’s labor keeping our lives
of force to make it so,

of refusing to admit the resources 
of home, of safety, of culture, of future
of muscle and blood and mind, 
of sovereignty and earth
continuously taken

how many of our ways of being on this land 
were forced from bodies of African people
from bodies labeled immigrant 
and bodies cornered in poverty 

how many native lineages and life cycles
severed, protectors killed, manipulated
and made to watch

when you look down at the hands 
holding your living, who do you see

who crafted the tools you carry for
building a life? how many were given
freely? how many are you prepared to
give back?

are you prepared to go empty long enough
to remember each devotion bartered away

to remember repair

to relearn to carry your own load