Growing a Tree

Changing the world is like growing a tree

It can take many years, but it starts with a seed

A shred of hope that things will get better

A poem wrote with pain in each letter

Many have died, washed away in the sea

Many more screaming please I can’t breathe

How many more before you finally see?

How many more til these people are free?

Now blood stains the pavement like water on leaves

Mixed with tears of a mother who silently grieves

Watering the seeds that are centuries old

The sweat of a people who did what they’re told. 

I’ll never understand how that hate has to feel

But I’ve heard hate before and I know that it’s real

It’s time we choose love and we learn how to heal

The taste of mace should be no ones last meal

No one is perfect, but admit when you’re wrong

Admit this oppression has lasted too long

So from one white skin to another this wars not for you

and all lives won’t matter til Black Lives do too

Black lives should matter to courts and police

Just as black lives should matter to all who can breathe

So yes they should matter to you can’t you see?

That Black Lives do matter, they matter to me