The Archive--Poetry in the Finding

I have been spending a lot of time in the archive recently. I enjoy it. I really enjoy the quiet calm convening with ancestors, with moments, movements past/passed. I found a Black Lesbian and Gay Newsletter from Jan. 1985 and I thought, wow--that's the month and year that I was born. Did those folks know they were calling me in to existence as they were also calling upon themselves and each other?

 

Poetry in the Finding--Our Black Queer Herstories

I find you in folders and boxes stored away

Were you waiting for me?

Because I have been dreaming of you and your stories

Were you dreaming about me and my friends?

Were you thinking of us when asked for Black and Gay?

Were you thinking of yourselves and just how badd you were/are?

From The National Coalition of Black Gays Bylaws, Nov. 1980

They told me you didn’t exist like this

But I have seen you now

I come to you with questions

How did we get here?

I know I can’t go back, but perhaps you can give me some ideas as to how to move forward

I come to you humbly and with gratitude

Thank you for the doing and the writing

1982 NY.

Thank you for documenting your lives as you lived and loved so fiercely

And I know the record is incomplete

I know there are things I will never truly come to understand

But please teach me what I need to know now

For this moment for these people

1979 Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference

2011 Here to Stay Coalition

 

 

KEEP WRITING:-)