Cornerstone Ministries Inc.
Beautiful Black Butterfly
At first glance
Notice
The delicate, sensational beauty
Full of color, full of grace
Vibrant, Awe inspiring
Majestic symmetry
From one glance
Look closer
Notice the delicate lines
Bloodlines that reach deep into time
Tracing back to a Creator
Who keeps us in the forefront of His mind
Each of us with a unique story
Told with fine scales of rich color sublime
Look deeper
Cogitate our struggles
In the cocoon of slave ships
Captured and siphoned to distant lands
Crowded and cramped
Some grew different wings
Oceans bear their bones
And speak not of grief it has seen
Beautiful Black butterfly
Twisted, we turned, turning, we twisted
Strengthened as we resisted
Presidents that owned our forefathers
And freed them as gifts
A Supreme Court that deemed us property
And counted us in fifths
Congress enacted laws, stripping basic rights
Morphed our wings but called it a fair fight
Beautiful black butterfly
We illumined our vivid pigment
Amidst the cocoon of Jim Crow
When the winds of justice would not bear us up
We sat down to fight
We alighted
On buses
At lunch counters
In public spaces
Conscientious objectors
When forced to serve against our will
Breaking the moulds that bid us accept, conform
Despite the country’s social ills
No longer accepting citizenship of a second-class
Time in cocoons cannot last