by Michelle Denise Jackson
I.
Black Women make the best preachers.
They spend everyday of their lives
bearing witness & being proof
that God made us miracles.
This is not opinion, this is fact.
II.
My mother is a preacher.
My mother been testifying from the pulpit
This is not opinion, this is fact.
II.
My mother is a preacher.
My mother been testifying from the pulpit
of her body since I was born.
My mother recognizes my growth
as a resurrection outside of time.
My mother is baptism and bible,
always.
III.
My grandmother sits outside and meditates.
My grandmother tells me words have power,
so what I speak comes true.
My grandmother is a poet.
My grandmother tells me her only job
as a parent was to give her children roots and wings—
all the in-between and all the rest was up to them.
My grandmother is all the church I need this morning.
IV.
My Black Girl friends be choir & congregation.
They provide me everything I need:
a laying of hands when I need healing;
a laying of the commandments when I need a reading.
They bring me back to the word every time.
When folks wonder:
where did this fervor for blackness come from?
I tell them I was converted:
my blackness and my womanhood are the water,
and I have immersed myself.
V.
Today, I do not go to church.
But I am in constant praise.
God miracles in movements,
God lives for everybody,
God lives in everybody.
God lives in these women and
these women who move through me
like Spirit Whole & Free.
They take me to the mouth of the sermon,
and let the Word give me this work.
These Black Women give me this work.
I am a cannonball catapulted into the sky of their grace.
They catch me every time.
My mother recognizes my growth
as a resurrection outside of time.
My mother is baptism and bible,
always.
III.
My grandmother sits outside and meditates.
My grandmother tells me words have power,
so what I speak comes true.
My grandmother is a poet.
My grandmother tells me her only job
as a parent was to give her children roots and wings—
all the in-between and all the rest was up to them.
My grandmother is all the church I need this morning.
IV.
My Black Girl friends be choir & congregation.
They provide me everything I need:
a laying of hands when I need healing;
a laying of the commandments when I need a reading.
They bring me back to the word every time.
When folks wonder:
where did this fervor for blackness come from?
I tell them I was converted:
my blackness and my womanhood are the water,
and I have immersed myself.
V.
Today, I do not go to church.
But I am in constant praise.
God miracles in movements,
God lives for everybody,
God lives in everybody.
God lives in these women and
these women who move through me
like Spirit Whole & Free.
They take me to the mouth of the sermon,
and let the Word give me this work.
These Black Women give me this work.
I am a cannonball catapulted into the sky of their grace.
They catch me every time.
