Black lives matter.
They matter to every
brilliant, bright-eyed,
brown-skinned child
and to the world they grace,
for their potential for joy,
for discovery, for fervent love

Black lives matter
to every mother, father, brother,
niece — all of the blood connections,
all the humanity,
all the strength developed
through undeserved oppression,
all the courage to stand together
against colossal odds

And Black lives matter
to the poverty of my whiteness,
to the cruelty of a system
which has given me the harsh role
of oppressor

Black lives matter
and if we Whites can free ourselves
from our complicity,
we, too, will taste
some of the sweetness
we’ve been parched for, all these years

We will learn kindness
in ways we’ve never known,
for kindness only thrives
where it can be unbridled,
unmeasured, unwithheld,
where it flows freely
to wherever there’s a need,

To wherever there’s a bright child
who needs the world to know
her Black life matters,
(and Barbie, not a model for anything,
is just hard plastic)
One Black life can start to set us free.
Black lives matter to me.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2016