Continuing the celebration of Easter, SuzyKnew! shares “Holy Family”by jessica care moore in We Want Out Bodies Back. Photo is courtesy of Soujourners and is a new icon depicting “Our Lady of Ferguson and All Those Killed by Gun Violence.”

Dear Black Madonna

Dear sacred mothers

America is coming for our sons with AR15s

 

Just as they came for Jesus

 

How many crosses shall we burn?

50 years after Detroit and Newark set fire to racial inequality and police brutality

 

How many die before we erupt?

Our children, blood-lava, spilling on concrete jungle streets

 

how many prayer mats face east and pray

3 times a day for relief, for sanctuary, for peace.

 

I watch my son’s arms grow longer

I listen to his mind strengthen, his pride

push past America.

 

What is a slave name?

he asks me at 10

This is the moment our sons let go of our hands & want to play in the park with friends or walk home alone.

 

The answer it Tamar Rice:

will never

 

This is the collective worry of millions of Marys

hiding their Jesus children in their shelter

prayers, blankets, candles, family dinners.

 

Our sons still burning

Our daughters, not safe

 

We rebel against colonization

Resist the death of culture

 

The killing of the old

To rush in the new

 

One day a prophet shall return

The Flint water turns to wine.