HISTORY OF HUE

This poem is dedicated to the little boy in summer camp that said the ugliest color was black.

Little Black boy

Why so blue?

Is society still judging you

By the darkness of your hue?

Is this world so cruel?

Splitting brown trees

To cut green dollars

To buy shiny red corvettes

And big white yachts

Sailing on sky-colored oceans

While you

Black boy,

Black feet sunk in tan sand,

Jealousy filling your hazel eyes,

Sunlight pressing against

A deep humility blushing

On your black cheeks

Your cries sound meek

Though your jaw bones

Break color barriers

When you speak;

Your drive is real and

You leave a trail of fire

Like black oil

When it leaks

(But) Has life given you lemons

When all yu asked for

Was orange juice?

Have racist, sexist lies wormed

Into the apple of your eyes?

Are you sober or was that

Lemon juice 100 proof?

Are they comparing you

To watermelon again?

Is your blackness too

Black for your white friends?

Is it not black enough

For your black friends?

Are you mulatto or Latino

And find tragedies

In coloring books?

Who said we had to color

Inside the lines anyway?

Filling in the hard work

Of someone else's outline.

Isn't it a crime

This Red White and Blue

Has gradated to

Blood Cracker & Water hose,

Devil hands False angels & Katrina

Has your passion

Lost all of its crimson

Turning magenta and pink

As you sink under

The maroon sunset?

Did night sky surrendered

All its lavender royalty

As blue and red sirens

Mix and twist violet violence

Black boys and black girls...

Have you forgotten

That all the colors on

The wheel rotate around

You? Did you not read

That through the darkness

God created the light,

That your indigo ancestors

Ruled over the Earthy greens

And turquoise seas

Has color tv whitewashed

Your mind blinding you

From the history of your hue?

There used to be gold all

In your chain

Gold all in your rings

Gold all in your watch

Gold crown on ya top;

You was bigger bigger bigger

Bigger than all things small

Brighter than all things gray,

Platinum chrome and silver

Buried under the bed you laid

It's amazing how we started

From the top and now

We're here...

Saturated in ignorance

Blended with pity

Painted, printed and processed

To look like Ken's & Barbie's

Who found us attractive

In the first place

I will pray til I am an

Old, wooden brown

Rocking-chair turning

Gray as wisdom's hair

Before I ever forget

Black was always in

The first place,

So Black boy black boy

No matter what they say or do,

Always remember the value

WithIn the history of your hue