calloused hands

(inspired by Dave the Potter)

what history
will we carve
with our hands?

will it be
an unfiltered truth
as written word,
tattooed
on the body
of pottery
when reading
and writing
were
revolutionary?

will our hands
hold each other
in crisis
again
and again
when our bodies
are fragile
and bone-dry,
coiling
the repetition
of past mistakes,
shaped
by the fires
of racism?

will america
hold out
her hands
to the ghosts
of our ancestors
and repair her history?

her body
has been molded
by violence
and hardened
by the heat
of wars.

we are
passing down pain
to our youth
with calloused hands.

history has been
sculpted
for us,

but we’ll
continue
to have faith
that our future
is malleable
as clay.

I am ready
and willing
to shape
a better future
for tommorrow,

but today,
we are just
echoes
of the past.