Black Elders Love Harshly

There is a quiet kind of love

In doing what you’re supposed to do,

In letting meeting needs be your goal and letting nothing keep you from it,

In fighting off the linemen of the world who keep trying to tackle you relentlessly,

And in passing down the recipes even when children aren’t happy to learn,

Because we’re gonna need it someday.

I’ve seen this love when my grandmother hit me with her comb and told me to stay still so she could finish braiding,

when my father argued with my brother over the school bill that he paid,

When I got my first welt on my first time ironing,

and i was yelled at to be careful

When I was seated on the counter

(after all the clothes were pressed)

and my mother nursed my wound.

in my family there were lots of wounds nursed, where the child was held and pinned down, screaming in anticipation,

fearful for the necessary burn from the juice of a lime that would hurt us but always help in the end.

I knew a childhood full of people yelling bitterly that we didn’t appreciate their sacrifices enough,

And now I think they were right.

But children never know, and maybe they’re not supposed to.

Black elders love to love you hard, and harsh,

And tell you they’re preparing you for a world that will spit you out like any dark and chewed up sunflower seed, because that’s the way it always is,

And that’s the way it always will be.

But maybe it won’t, is what I say back,

And I only say maybe, but I know it for certain,

As certain as I know my name.

I will not prepare my children for a painful world by being painful.

I will be too busy praying that the sun only ever hits them gently

And blessing the grass that they grace.

My love will not be quiet:

It will be a hurricane wind.