PUBLISHER’S NOTE

As publishers, journalists, writers, etc., we represent the Wise Gurus of our ancestors as we have taken Up the torch to Use our gifts and resources to provide the truth of our living to out communities, this Nation, and the world. That Is the mission of our publications. This poem I share addresses why we must tell our stories.

PHOTO CREDIT: MARK MAHONEY (DREAMINCOLOR) EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE NNPA

Who Can Tell My Story

By Carol Prejean Zippert, PhD

So here you come and

you’re saying you can tell my story

So how will you start

I don’t even know the beginning exactly –

It goes back so far and so deep

So when you tell my story

how will you tell about all the pain

that you refuse to know about

and all the pain that I truly know about

And when you tell my story

where will you go to meet all my struggles

Do you know how i lift myself to greet a sunrise each morning

Do you know how I prepare my courage

and my faith to last through

that coming sunset each evening –

That’s how my story goes

So you will tell my story

Where will you find what I know to celebrate

What do you have inside you that will connect

to the history that leads me on the journey

deep in my body and spirit and find that dance

and that song and that poem

that make my story

So you think you can tell my story

And you still don’t hear your lie in that –

You can tell my story

My story is mine and you can know it

when I tell it

My story is mine and you can know it

when you break down the lies in your story

that you inflict on mine

My story is mine and when you hear it from me

You will know that it does connect to yours

And we can have our story when the past and the present are lifted in truth

When the story is ours we will know justice

And we will know peace,

And that’s how the story goes