Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

"That Which Is Good Is Never Finished"
Bill Quigley
16 Dec 2008
🖨️ Print Article
"THAT WHICH IS GOOD IS NEVER FINISHED"
-- Proverb of the Sukuma people of Tanzania
(a wedding poem for Christopher and Varanda)

 

Click the flash player below to hear this original work performed by the Seven Foot Poet

{mp3}poetry/20081216_7ft_that_which_is_good{/mp3}

 

It is wonderfulwhen you love yourself enoughto allow yourselfto be -- to have -- to give -- to takea wish -- a hope -- a spouse -- a soulmate.

The distance between yesterday tomorrow and today

can be measured in magic

when you levitate

your frame of reference

drift into a different perspective

an anciently new

ancestral reality

where

1 + 1 = 1

and

1 + 1 + 1 = 1 . . . infinitely.

That which is glorious

cannot be diminished.

That which is good

is never finished.

Your union pre-dates a beginning

and post-dates an end.

Your ancestors bring

tenfold blessings

ivory bracelets and leopard skins.

Modern society’s feeble understanding of dimensions

acquiesces like pawns before a king and queen

when your love is mentioned:

“Bow down time!”

“Bow down space!”

“Bow down distance!”

Earth and sky celebrate

this marriage

this day

Know this

Know it like you know your heart is beating this very instant.



By Kemit Mawakana (aka The Seven-Foot Poet)

Peace (when appropriate) War (when necessary)

Copyright 2008.

Kemit Mawakana (aka “The Seven-Foot Poet”) is a highly acclaimed spoken-word artist, and has published two books A . . . Z . . . Infinity and Crucifixion of My Soul. The collective body of his works presented in www.blackagendareport.com and www.voxunion.com are in tribute to Listervelt Middleton, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, and “For The People”. Currently, he is a facilitator at AYA Educational Institute (www.ayaed.com) in Atlanta, Georgia and can be reached at sevenfootpoet@gmail.com.



Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Synergy of the Sacrificed: Katrina and the Praxis of Imperial Domination
    27 Aug 2025
    Twenty years after Katrina, the disaster stands not as an anomaly but as a blueprint. Its aftermath reveals a template for imperial domination, where "natural" disasters become pretexts for…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    "Inequality in Kenya: View from Kibera" Documentary Premieres August 28
    27 Aug 2025
    Join political activist and Black Agenda Report’s contributing editor Ajamu Baraka and members of the Communist Party Marxist-Kenya on a trip to Kibera, Africa’s largest slum.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Ethnic cleansing called Katrina
    27 Aug 2025
    "Ethnic cleansing called Katrina" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Jaribu Hill
    Solidarity, not Charity—End Jim Crow Recovery—Restore All Communities
    27 Aug 2025
    Jaribu Hill, Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, recounts the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and the efforts to organize on behalf of the people.
  • Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Katrina: The Rich Folks' Opportunity and Our Dismal Failure
    27 Aug 2025
    "Racism showed its ass in the days after August 29, 2005."
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us