Soul Face

I miss the soul of my city.  I miss the soul people of my city.  I miss the heart of my city.  I miss the soul faces, the soul places, the soul music, soul poetry, soul memory, soul skin of my city.  I miss the soul shadows that shaded us with the scent of sisters who stood tall and watched over our community.  I miss you. I miss your soul eyes, your soul voice, your soul lips that whispered prayers that asked the creator to bless us, to keep us together.  I miss the soul cupboards, the soul pots and pans slick with soul grease.  I miss the soul music of your mind.  I miss soul laughter, the most beautiful sound in the world.  I miss your soul sweat and soul passion that can make something out of nothing.  I miss your soul tears that created a soul soup of life.  I miss the black heart black tongue black mind black pulse in the alleyways, corners, small rooms, parks, buses—talk that made the grass grow under our feet for a thousand lifetimes.  My city is empty without your soul heart, your soul face.  Give us back our soul mama’s, our soul daughters, soul sons, soul elders, soul children—our soul life.  Your soul face has been used for far too long.  Your soul face in black and white pictures glued to the walls in coffee shops in neighborhoods that betrayed you, desecrated you, showing the faces of dead blues singers and jazz musicians as if that makes everything ok.  I miss your soul life, true laughter, true life.  Without you the city isn’t the city, it is snow thawing into nothing. The soul has thawed and what remains is an army of nasal voiced mickey mouse clones whose pedicures can’t hide the dirt of their minds, the callowness of their presence, the emptiness of their canned laughter, the obliviousness of their arrogance.  The killing of the soul of the city was conceived long ago through charts, graphs, paper trails and lies that trace their line of blood with the first swindle of native peoples on Turtle Island.  I miss my city.  I miss the soul of the city.  I miss your soul face, soul life, soul everything.