-Daniel aka Obsidian
Sallie
By Daniel Canada aka Obsidian c.2016
My earliest memories of you was a pocket book swing as I waited baited breath for your beautiful form to show up on the horizon of a dirty Bronx street there’s my pretty mother come to rescue me from the confusion of kids playing hop scotch on the hot summers concrete
Leather purse holding the wages of food for we hungry chillum hungry for spaghetti and rice and beans corn flakes along with the remnant of pink milk saved in the heart of a woman who put in more than 14 hours of work to feed the mouth of her babies
Nights fill with terror and the screams of daddy who felt it made sense to beat the hell of a Princes to make up for hard day’s mafia work
Mommy taught me how to read the bible first so I was way ahead of my colleagues who wanted to know how Dick chased Jane, mommy got a bachelor’s degree after raising a family in the ghettos of the Bronx to become a teacher she taught bible classed quoted scripture better than the arch bishop of Canterbury we buried her not… she said the flames are my end so burn me like the mustache man burn me like the flames of love that simmer in all your heart-you fell me?
Sallie, I still see you crocheting blankets in the night organs and piano you use to play spiritual cord wafting into the wee hours I play piano now no memories of southern root rooted deep in the red South Carolina soil I wasn’t born there but I remember grandpa and his thirst for sweet potatoes the waving fields of wheat you wanted to come back home even from your last stage your spirit traveled across the parch and arid lands it came home to roost to rest upon the house you had built a monument to the
Wilsons a monument to the Samuels DNA still whispers in my vein I really miss you Sallie Canada you were light shining in dark places you were so stoic so Cherokee Indian woman-you fought the spasms of death until you gave up your final breath
To fly away to southern skies cosecant ore Kelly Camden fields of green there you are with your ancestors saying “We shall overcome.” for you are strong-you were strong in life you are strong in spirit
And the legacy of your love of your fried chicken like Aunt Sugar Lump and Aunt Mamie, collard greens and dumpling live on in me I have pictures of you now smiles frozen in sequential time-they are not you… you are the sun that wake the early hours of dawn in the stillness of twilight-and hear you
So, now I know what the name Sallie meant: it meant Soulful Attributes of Loving Light & Internal Endearment-you see mommy it is at this moment I finally understand what you stood for &apologize cause it took me this long…
I wear your unfinished green scarf and I carry your wonderful smile…with pride
