A Poem by Alexis Pauline Gumbs & Sangodare Julia Wallace
November 16, 2021
brave brain
and a bright brown heart
with a baltimore start
and a durham education
brown mud
for the stolen blood
for the leaking foundation
of the segregated dead
brown girl dreams from
generations of paulines
turned tomboy steam
office boy gleam
in grandpa’s shining shoes
crushed clenched heart
for the oversmart
for a season’s start to repair
boyish art and impish chart
of shorter and shorter hair
loud love
for the vital shove
for the swinging glove
for the fight
open teeth
for the news this week
and a thousand letters that bite
love for the torch
that was lit on this porch
by grandma’s lip and grandpa’s cane
hope for the dirt
turned under the hurt
that witnessed the theft
and the pain
love for the dirt
called on to hold
the bones of the daily slain
it is this brown dirt
that we activate
and water with your name
and if this brown land
cannot understand
the blood on our hands
the indigenous, black and european
strands that ran and ran out in your veins
then we turn it over again
if this brown land
has underplanned for the
love of black women
to dismantle jim crow and jane
then we turn the land over again
if this brown land
seeks to reprimand
the lesbian or the gay
then we turn the land over again
then we turn it over today
if this brown land
cannot clearly stand
for the young and the broke
and the queer and the trans
then your life would have been in vain
so we must turn it over again
and with these brown hands
on our open hearts
we remember your refrain
give me a song
a world
give me hope
give me a song
a people
give me faith
give me a song
a country
give me kindliness
give me a song
a brown heart
give me love
do you hear me?
sing it
believe in it
live it
give it Give me a song
give it Give ME a song
give it
a prophecy purchased
with the labor endured
by our beloved
a future fulfilled
any moment matured
by those who cease to put fear above it
A song to welcome
in a weary throat
a song for a weary land
Give it now.
Give it to understand.
Or Did we in our own strength confide
our striving would be losing
were not the right one on our side
The Saint of God's own choosing
And though this world,
with sorrows filled,
does threaten to undo us
We will not fear
for Saint Pauli hath willed
her truth to triumph through us
We will not fear
for Saint Pauli hath willed
their truth to triumph through us
I can hear Saint Pauli say... (Come here Pauli)
The map I left
of lock and key
for doors you may
now open
to honor me
my legacies
you are now blessed
and certainly beholden
Then...
Then y'all...
By and by,
when the morning of our opening comes
all a'we Saints
will join together as one
We'll tell the story
how we overcome
We'll understand it better...
outside time
How we made up our mind
by never leaving anyone behind
How we made up our mind
by never leaving anyone behind
by never leaving ANYONE behind
Dedicated to recent ancestor Cynthia Brown, a member of the Pauli Murray Project steering committee
Commissioned for the 2017 designation ceremony and celebration — “HOMECOMING” — of the Pauli Murray Family Home as a National Historic Landmark, the 39th in North Carolina and the first in the nation focused on women and LGBTQ history.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Sangodare Julia Wallace are the founders of Mobile Homecoming Trust, based in Pauli Murray's hometown of Durham, North Carolina. Mobile Homecoming Trust amplifies the lives and legacies of Black feminist and LGBTQ visionaries. Alexis’ most recent book is Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals.
Header photo by Kate Medley
