Rev. Crystal's Full Moon Blessings

And the Water Said....By Ifalade Ta'Shia Asanti

A Poem For the 2005 Hurricane Katrina Survivors

All Rights Reserved @August 2005





And the water said, "listen!"

I am coming to show you truth

I am coming to shake the grains of sands beneath you

Show you that which is hidden but in plain view

And the water told us why she had come--

I have come to stroke the skin tones of America

To comb the roots of racism

Expose the scalp of discrimination

Make it bare like the parts of newly plaited hair

"Can you hear me," the water asked?

I'm here to purify these nations

To wash the streets clean of their denial

To reveal faulty foundations and forked tongues

And I shall not be ignored

And her rain created cities of tears

Waves of brutal reality

Demanding transformation

Commanding our world undone

She woke us early

When the white house phone line was busy

About a quarter to one she woke us

Before our comfort arrived in monthly envelopes

Made us remember the unity of a million maafas

Showed us how genocides join sons

She carried our vision to rooftops

Where the shepherd revoked our salvation

FEMA dollars transformed into tombstones

Homeland Security became a funeral home

And the water returned to her garden

An ailing levee beckoned her backwards

Back to the streets

Back to our homes

She wasn't sure we had remembered

She was sure that we had forgotten

And the water rose

She embraced our memories

Ran up our steps to our doorbells

She knocked but we didn't answer

She stretched higher and higher

Found us waiting in the sunlight

Waving to strangers in electronic birds

Whose wings made us invisible beneath the sleeping sun

Do you remember now she asked?

Do you remember Rwanda & Benin?

Do you remember the captive passage?

And she beckons us to forward

To new land

Under new realities

She calls us to independence

Not theirs, but our own

She turns our eyes inward

She moves our hands together


And the water said: "seek one another!"

Hear as you've never heard

Understand how you've never understood

I am parting my tide for your safe journey

So you may discover what I already know

You have survived

Let this message wash your ears alive

I am here with your salvation

I have delivered it on the words flowing from my tongue

And She retreated from their doorsteps and porches

Let the son return

She sent them into the wilderness

With prayers already done

Daughters of the ocean

Sons of the storm

Our God has not forsaken you

But come to reshape your love..