by MIGUEL BYRD

memory in movement | the groundings with my mothers

memory in movement

egungun
it is we, who
wear the masks
honoring our ancestors
the Dunbars of
Barnwell, South Carolina
Butler, Brooks
Ruth did not stop
hearing the drum
when she heard the
machines of the North

---

the groundings with my mothers

a summer spent
in Detroit
with two
ancestors living
through a migration
trying not to be-                    
come motown
than country.
1998, protecting
me from the
fragmenting
of my home.
not a paradox
but a sense
beyond them
told them, to
instill that we
can find home
in spirit, anywhere
if we sit and
re-member that
movement is not
always departure
from self
since the sun moves
every day. in 4
moments, we
changed to
remain the
same, eternal

---

Miguel is a 5th grade history teacher from Elizabeth, New Jersey. His love of poetry was reignited when he spent several weeks teaching the art form to second graders last school year. The enthusiasm and willingness around poetry that his students expressed sent him back to revisit the works of Sterling Allen Brown, Sonia Sanchez, and René Depestre. He spends his time away from teaching focused primarily on reading literature dealing with who Africans are to each other, working towards ways to apply conceptual categories from the Africana Studies framework to each lesson plan.