Kevin Coval

if you did not etch metal into black ink and Black bodies
if you did not travel to learn with the Mexican muralists
if you and Charlie did not think African history important
enough to re/member and re/present in Black light:
Black thought, Black ideas held in Black minds
in Black brains
if you did not build an institution in your house and basement
if you did not have a door Don L. Lee could come to cuz he needed someone
to talk with who would overstand
if you were not here, Black arts wouldn’t have been
mothered in this city like it was.
the wall of respect wdn’t of risen and burned
in the imagination of the Southside
if you were not here, no Afri-Cobra
no South Side Community Arts Center
no institutions, no memory and image
of the Black body by Black bodies
for Black bodies
if you were not here, no honest portrayal of Beauty
nothing authentic, no celebration
of African forms
if you and Gwendolyn Brooks were not
classmates and sisters
building
no OBAC
no Carolyn Rodgers
no Angela Jackson
no Walter Bradford
if you were not here, no Black language
no Black poetic, no ritual of song
in this segregated Chicago

the lineage is you
and Gwendolyn
and Haki
and hip-hop
ALL
pro-Black centered words
which is to say true
words for once that stay
telling it how it is.
ALL the voices needed
you nurtured them

if you were not here, ALL those words and images
ALL those pro-human Black centered songs
of working and justice, celebrating the body’s
survival, ALL the poets you mother tongued
ALL the painters hands you poured kool-aid
colors in

if you were not here, generations of american artists would not be either
you rescued us from english classes
you pulled our ties off in cubicles and administrative posts
and took some off the block, posted on the corner
you told us to dream and imagine and build
our legacies on the shoulders of who came before
you made us believe Art is a language the people need
you saved us from the civil war in ourselves, this city, this country
you always lived among the people
Bronzeville whirling and warping by your doorstep
you are so Chicago, that way
a mess of family and pigeons
a house full of gems and germs
you were always doing your job
getting our minds right
telling the next generation (and the generation after and after that)
to be about something, this is what you left
and you left so much
and you will always be here
and you will always be
in a purple kaftan and headdress
with wild acid nikes and no socks on
cuz you stayed fresh like that
and you left Us the desire to be fresh
to make and tell
and re/tell
and re/make
and re/main
and re/member
and re/present
always
here, you are
a huge heart of the story
and in order to re/member ourselves
we must speak
your name


11/22/2010