POEM
We are Commissioned for Greatness
A Poem by Tanya Manning-Yarde
We were from that exhalation of
Ether and ethos,
Fusing and spooling
Ancestral imaginings into
Seedlings seeking soil, unfolding
Into roots, absorbing, charged to
Burrow deep into Mother Earth’s mouth,
Soak in every watering word.
Obliging study of the bark and
Tutorials from leaf veins creating food for the body,
We learn our charge.
Postpone not in stillness, selfish
Like glorified sequoia or adorned arbor
Always waiting gawk of insect,
Chirp or squawk of passing bird.
Instead, grow into
Thirsty dandelions fleecing the field,
Flourishing with petals of testimony
Always prepared
To publish.
Tanya Manning-Yarde, Ph.D., is a freelance writer and former educator from New York City. A graduate of Rutgers University and University at Albany, she recently worked as a copy editor and contributing writer for Bronze Magazine. She is a freelance blogger for the annual Montclair Film Festival in Montclair, NJ as well as blogger for personal website (tmychronicles.wordpress.com). Prior to pursuing a career as a writer, she was a high school English/Language Arts teacher, Assistant Professor, Instructional Coach and an educational consultant. Her poems have been published by Literary Mama, Memoryhouse and Random Sample Review. She published her first book, Every Watering Word, through Wasteland Press. Inspired by her dissertation titled Literacy as Contextualized Action and homeschooling her two sons until school age, she is drafting a book on literacy and homeschooling.
POEM
THE WEDDING
A Poem by Rob Morton
The pain and the reverent beauty of it.
Beauty, because it radiated, everywhere.
Emanating from both the bride and the groom – more so from the bride.
She is given the title of Duchess yet she radiates the air of a Queen – Queen Meghan.
This air of royalty made all the more pungent by the attendance of Queen Serena.
Pain, because it burned in the souls of a particular people as a stifled scream.
Lost, again – the lost is not just of our Queens, but the lost those who would have been born with a union of their own.
Lost, a LeBron, lost, a Dr. Oyibo, a warrior, a genius.
Amongst the beauty, so apparent, there is the pain – not so apparent.
Lost again.