Americana was My Grandmother's Glory By Chyrel J. Jackson

 

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Americana was My Grandmother's Glory

A needle and thread.
A needle and crochet needles.

A ballot.

Sewing American Democracy
together one stitch and vote
at a time since our grandmother’s

and Grace Wisher.
One silent stitch at a time.
Americana doesn't see us.
We're the silent seamstress
holding on to hope and
covering ourselves in our
grandmother's glory.
We vote because our grandmother's
couldn't.
We believe in purple mountain
majesties and vote for American
Democracy.

You will find us from sea to
shining sea standing nobly

above fruited plains.
Even when we're uncelebrated
and unacknowledged.
Even when no one sees me.
I'm there cloaked in belief
wearing deferred dreams as a
banner yet waved.
I'm the 91 percent of Black
womanhood that voted for a first
ever Black woman president.
Still holding needle and thread
in our weary hands.
Still stitching the red, white, and
blue together all over the land.
Unseen holding on to hope,
Black women believe in a system
of government that never embraced
us back.
We are our grandmother's glory.
Were it not for Black women in
America there wouldn't be an
American story.

© Chyrel J. Jackson

Chyrel J. Jackson is a literary supernova and ranked #1 best-selling Amazon author. Reared and raised in the south suburbs outside Chicago. Black literature influences her writing. Chyrel Jackson writes in the spirit of her past great literary ancestors. 

Previously published works: Sisters Roc’N’Rhyme Presents Poems in the Key of Life, Mirrored Images and Different Sides of the Same Coin. Her writings appear in multiple poetry anthologies, literary Journals, and international global magazines.