For Ahmaud Arbery

Ahmaud. Your name is a banner we run under, a memorial. In your name we sift through the books of time, the annals of history, the memories of the past and shadows of the future. In your name we see this land, the land of our fathers and their fathers, the land of our mothers and their mothers in its beauty and its plight. We know the truth of this country lies in burning hot bullet wounds, striations of whipped backs, the striking scent of black ashes, the holy divide in spine made with sudden fall to earth. It’s the truth in the flames, the same truth in the water. But, God. None of our ancestors’ lives have been in vain and neither is yours. We remember you with the light of a thousand suns, the peace of a thousand rivers, the strength of a thousand trees. We remember you, like we have remembered and  remember our fathers and sons, grandfathers and uncles, friends and spouses, cousins and brothers. We remember you, because though they may claim your death, We alone claim your life. There is power in the name and the naming. So, we breathe life into you every time we say your name, send out a call for your spirit to have one more resting place. Ahmaud Arbery. Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Emmett Till. Anderson Gause. Henry White. Andrew Clark. Robert Robinson. The names we know and the names we do not. The men we’ve seen and the men we’ve seen not. The bodies we’ve counted and the bodies that pile up, a number only God knows. We’ve been knowing that to live here, on this land, is to be marked by their gaze, to be perpetually stuck in the partition of our Freedom and our death. But, you never were your race. You were always human first. A son, a student, an athlete, a confidant, the best part of someone’s day, a smile to lift spirits, a boy becoming and always becoming a man. So, we run for you, encamp around you with our wings. Fly you to a place We call home, away from the vultures, the ignorant, the complacent, and the folk who get outraged enough to do nothing. Yet, We are the ones who remember for Us, always have and always will. Just like we remember the lives of our devoted fathers and our loyal sons, our wise grandfathers and our jokey uncles, our best friends and our faithful spouses, our loving cousins and our bleeding brothers all slain by their hand, yet perfected by Our Memory. Held here if only for a moment. Here. That is enough. Always and forever.