Quotes from Aberjhani

The people of the city of Savannah within their collective conscience could follow previous examples in history and forgive the atrocities of actual slavery committed against slaves themselves. But what was it [the city] to do with the knowledge that children completely unaware of the greater ramifications of slavery were led to the Civil War slaughter in its name? How does one acknowledge with forgiveness such an unforgiving mutilation of one's own mind, body, soul, and legacy?

Trayvon Martin, at the most, seems only to have been guilty of being himself.

On faith's battered back calm eyes etch prayers that cool a nation's hot rage.

Art gives its vision to beauty not always recognized. And it surrenders freely -- whatever power it possesses to every sincere soul that seeks it. But above all else--it presents us with the gift of ourselves.

The ecstatic beauty and soulful grace of Rumi's poetry inspires human hearts to believe in possibilities beyond the predictably fatal.

Freedom rings bells to wake us from the comfort of beautiful dreams and empower the efforts that turn them into reality.

The only thing we knew for certain was the American Civil War was not a prelude to a kiss.

Leadership has never been an exact science. But it has always found itself particularly challenged when tasked with elevating one segment of a society onto a level more politically, socially, and economically equitable with another.

Poetry is less a respecter of individual persons than it is a compassionate witness to the meanings of the secret language that beats inside human hearts, the music that pulses through human cries, and the divinity which shines love beyond the veils of human limitations.

Your tears are muscles, hinged on wings lunar and solar. Your touch: life and death. (from poem Angel of Mercy)

Upon the lips of babes asleep I saw light embracing light and so allowed my syllables to rest there as a prayer they might sing in their dreams...

The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various individuals', or groups of individuals', experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their 'pursuit of happiness' to outright obliterating it.

There is in Albert Camus' literary craftsmanship a seductive intelligence that could almost make a reader dismiss his philosophical intentions if he had not insisted on making them so clear.

Some have speculated that the way [Albert] Camus died made his theories on absurdity a self-fulfilling prophecy. Others would say it was the triumphant meaningful way he lived that allowed him to rise heroically above absurdity.

How could the pearls of grace and wisdom he [Mike Pence] had brought to the table retain any value when they were constantly being sloshed with more and more foul-smelling slime? If anyone deserved better––aside from the American people themselves and women as a whole––it seemed to me that it might have been this man who had proven to be such a capable champion and ally.

Whether we consider hip-hop as an evolved manifestation of the Harlem Renaissance or something completely new under the sun, it clearly has moved beyond the stage of just entertaining lives to that of informing and empowering lives.

If it wasn't for all those silver wings spread out to help you on your journey, you would'a been dead or someplace screamin' in a nut house a long time ago.

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future

It may be that poetry's real beauty and elegance is not its finely-chiseled lines or smoothly-rounded ideological concepts at all. The crown of its significance might be––or possibly should be?––its expansive capacity to embrace with equal passion the deadliest failings and the most splendid victories defining human existence.

The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else's children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.

Added to the shock of the routine violation of their bodies was the trauma of having to relinquish their children to unknown slave-holders. [W.E.B.] Du Bois considered this physical, mental, and spiritual abuse of black women--with its inevitable result being the destruction of the traditional African family--the highest crime committed by slave-holders and the one thing for which he said he could not forgive them.

It becomes more and more difficult to avoid the idea of black men as subjects of not just racial profiling but of an insidious form of racial obliteration sanctioned by silence.

A man sitting monkey-like on the rooftop of his brain is due the applause such feats earn him.

With my ninth mind I resurrect my first and dance slow to the music of my soul made new.