Transfigure My Magnolia Roots

The first Magnificent Magnolia Tree

100 million years ago even before the bees

And butterflies

After Magnolia made a pact with the beetle

Wise and lofty, Magnolia shares her wisdom

Magnolia whispers that my own roots 

Need to sink deeper into the soil

Of Mother Earth

Need to spread my roots around

Like a dancer's skirt

Weaving a lively

Web of interconnectedness

Between differentnesses and 

Transfiguring what has been 

Deep in the magnolia South

My birth cultivated by generations

Of white supremacy and classism

Hierarchies and Patriarchy

These -archies that dwell deep inside my bones

Splattered throughout my cells

Can't banish them entirely but

Can lasso them, grab them

And wrestle them to the ground

Like some of the other beliefs my 

Ancestors may have held dear 

But which I do not understand

And, do not accept

Signs at protests:

"Uproot White Supremacy

White Silence is Violence"

I need to diagnose my own bones

Explore inside the marrow and 

View the structure of this inheritance

I hear jangling in my ears when I smell

Or taste Racism

How to take effective action, a constant inquiry

This social construct, called Race, has 

Served White people throughout time

I want no slavery of any sort, no ownership 

Of people,  no incarceration of people

Just so they are made to work for free

Try that with white men and women

See how fast the swamp swallows that up

The Magnolia tree and her roots

Have survived longer than racism

By transforming and adapting 

Throughout time

So can we

My Prayer:

Transfigure our biases and our

Beliefs, uprooting and tossing

Out wicked evil and violence

Preserving tender Love, Understanding, and Compassion