Mama Africa

 

She’s our mama

Rich and spiritual

In all the right places

She nourishes us

Gives us our identity

Our foundation

But she was hurt

By many dark moments

By many cold people

And she’s still healing

I can hear her

 

As she asks us to be kind to her

 

Don’t be mad babies

I am still love

I am still strong

I am still a reflection of you

They tried to rip us apart

Divide us into fragments

Tell us that we weren’t beautiful

And silence our essence

 

But you know mama

She wouldn’t let that happen

She gives soil to the children

Fertilizing their minds

With traditions that shake up any invasion

And crumble it into the nothingness from which it came

 

I give to you these powers

These powers of resistance

These powers to define yourselves as beautiful

These powers to stand up

To rise

To unite

To take back your land

To hold each other’s hands

You are all my children

And that makes you each other’s siblings

 

That makes you shine brighter than any mineral they steal from my womb

From any project they design in our name

Any tactics they have to wipe us out

Any weapons they import to keep us fighting

 

Just like me

You are strength

You are integrity

You are divinity

You are sacred

You are beautiful

You are humanity

You

Are where it all began

 

And you

Can bring it all back

 

The peace

The justice

The structures we had

The systems we built

The way of life that we created

The spiritual integrity that defines us

 

It is time

To lift me up

I am still your mama

And I know you

I know you are bigger than

Genocide

I know you are more than

War

I know you are more than

Hating your own

 

You are free now

Free to hug yourselves again

To be proud

To look in the mirror

And see beauty

Don’t let them define it for you

 

It is the thing that will bring us down

 

Your mama is here

Watching

Praying

Listening

Hurting

 

I believe in you

My children

My children

 

My children spread out

All over the world

 

I believe in you, too

 

Please love each other

Please hold each other

Please unite with each other

 

If not for me

For the ancestors

 

 

Love

Mama Africa