Black People are the Most Creative People in the World

Black people are the most creative people in the world. 

Over and over again, we have been required 

to create something out of nothing

Worse. To create something out 

of less than nothing, out of deficit. Out of loss .

So, we never build on neutral ground, 

our surfaces are always embattled. 

We never sing a soulless song; 

our harmonies are always insurgent. 

We never dream a solo vision; 

our hopes are always wrapped around one another 

like our aunties fingers braiding spirituality into 

rows on our head or our uncles voices leaping 

one over the other to retell the story we all know by heart. 

They say that necessity is the mother of invention

And our many needs urge us daily into the making

But our inventions don’t always whir and clang; 

Often they spin and shout; 

our inventions don’t always extract and calculate, 

Often they embrace and comfort. 

This is why our style cannot be replicated,

our swag can not be duplicated

Our joy cannot be simulated

Because our every breath is a radical act of creation. 

It is dangerous, it is wild, it is exhilarating to live 

and to love and to keep living and keep loving 

in defiance of those who would have you dead. 

Black people are the most creative people in the world; 

Our most marvelous creations? Ourselves. 

A Toast to 2024

To the end of a journey that has only just begun
To the peeling of bells that have only just rung out the news of new and never before seen or heard or lived before. 

To the yearnings that become beginnings and the sparks that become fires.
To the embers that glimmer yet somehow warm and light a cold and dark world. 

To the forward march into the unknown wood where dragons await and treasures lay.
To the virtues found through the labors and love and faith that forges the way. 

To journeys into the past to commune with the beloved lost with whom we long to reunite.
To the tears and tears in rended hearts that at once open and seal wounds that never fully mend. 

To the bold and to the beautiful.
To the quiet and the thoughtful. 
To all that glitters and to all the shimmers.
To all that rusts and creaks and seeks the loving touch of a gentle hand. 
To all that weeps and wanders and twists and turns and grips and gathers us together again. 

To all that lies ahead. To all that came before.
To life. To 2024.