A Psalm for the Living

Transnational Feminism
Written By D Providence

Image by engin akyurt via Unsplash

To whom shall I lift up my prayers

for the children of the living,

whose laughter descends from the clouds?

To whom shall I pray

for the mothers of the living,

whose tears form a deluge at my feet?

I have lifted my eyes unto the hill

and from thence cometh indifference

to the severed limbs and the bones

chalk white against the dust,

smitten by sun showers of white

phosphorous by day

and (Adir)sidewinders by night.

Will he that does not slumber

walk amongst the refuge(es) to

see up close the will of his chosen?

Will he hear my supplications from over here?

Will he hear theirs over the screams of the F16s

obliterating the uncovered

where there is no rock under which

the un-homed could hide,

where the green pastures now burn?

Will he preserve their flight

along evacuation routes

of perpetual blight?

Will he, who made Heaven,

remember all of his children

on this Earth? 


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D Providence

My name is Debra Providence (she/her). I am a mother, writer, artist, and educator. I am a Black Caribbean Feminist. I believe in global Black intersectional liberation agitation. I believe that true liberation must include voices from a cross-section of race and class, genders, and sexualities, none should be excluded.

 I see creativity as a survival and resistance strategy. When structures of power and dominance are confronted on one front, they change, they adapt to maintain. Survival for the marginalized often means leaning into creativity to secure their subject positions, their ontologies, from silence and threats of erasure. Survival often demands adapting creatively to outmaneuver mechanisms of structure and dominance. Creativity is not a luxury, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, creativity is survival. 

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