(for Gwen Brooks) may your words: coiled concise, darkly bright, ever flow never erode nor recede but always be thought seed a growing green that feeds the spirit thirst of us who sojourn in desert clime seeking soil deep enough to support dense neo-african roots; gwen love is you who blew syllabled breaths into politicized psyches, exhaled stanzaed transmissions that raised our imaginations buoyed us with the simple leverage of speech booted on the black rock of conscious lyrics sung precise as talk drum heartbeats rhythmically sounded by skilled hands rapping life cycles reverberating off the scarred hides of our time you are no ordinary waterfall but a sacred pouring sparkling liquid clear as crystal joy tears in grand motherly eyes surveying with knowing surprise the accomplishments of progeny who yesterday were but babbling babes; gwen, we are the scribes, wordsmiths and versifiers you inspired, our rhymes succulent juice of precious fruit grown ripe atop the griot height of mahogany poet trees and watered by the elixired libation of our sagacious queen mother humbly uttering a holistic incantation: write as black as you be and be as black as all we collected, resurrected, rightly rendered, remembered —kalamu ya salaam No Ordinary Waterfall