For the Black Woman: A Lyrical Ballad of Journey and Endurance


by Kelli Peoples

I don't know how to go on
she says in the night
it hurts
I'm afraid and
I'm too tired
to fight

I have been cut by the dull edge of the blade
wounded by the quiet rip of the knife

Inside I am alive
but the fear is so bright
that it blinds me
so I stumble
in the mourning star's light

I fall
I rise
I am a daughter of night
I am wearing the dust of the trek
but the dew washes
the wretchedness



So I stand bare before my love:
I am betrothed to Kismet

Walk with me,
mine lover
We shall cut the morrow
like a veil
to protect us
from dispossession
despair and
travail

And our children shall never
be undone
nor shall any blade
rend them apart

Then I shall be free
to repent and atone
the nights I nearly gave
my life too wantonly
from fear of being alone

Because I nearly succumbed
to the promise of that serpent
the King of Loneliness
who preys upon bereft wails of Despair.
From the likes of the sorrowful he hears
he hears each and every anti-prayer

But the night I cried
without understanding
still, I was guided away

And I tell you, the heart-riven,
that moonlight is enough
to guide even tear-blinded
strays thru stones of turmoil
thru the thorns and the brush

Photo Credit: Shutterstock




Kelli Peoples is Freelance Writer, Novelist and Instructor of American History