This is For Us All

We search for our lineage

same red flowing in veins

lions roaring flames before

we were tamed. Our seas

lose their calmness, peacefulness

turquoise bellies no longer pregnant

with seaweed but sienna stones remain

to remind us. We find our goddesses

with back bones. Yes, back bones soaked in bronze

fearless mothers feeding us, we eat from our yucca roots

and remedies swallowed below the moon growing

to make us stronger, to break down the walls

between us, turn our faces to see the world as it is

we find our goddesses prancing like peacocks in rain

with emerald eyes and feathers, salutations to the sun

we bow to our goddesses, slipping envelopes

under red doors. Our lineage, seven generations of loving

peacemaking, dancing, watching leaves turn gold. 

Wishes of Goddesses

I wish for a song.

Do you know how to sing?

The way hummingbirds do

in my mind, with busy wings

on the other side of the windowpane.

I wish to wear a lavender night

gown. Do you know how to sew?

How to cut wild silk

without fringe floating in air

like godmother, hummed

when hemming?

I wish my fingers to reach the horizon.

Do you know how to dance?

To dance with abandon.

Lifting feet to twirl in cadence, listen  

to silence, feel fingers of sun on skin.

I hunger for the body of a pineapple.

Do you know how to cook?

To fold herbs in bread? Marinate treasured

sea with soil, then kiss the hands that feed you?   

Jerrice J Baptiste is an artist, poet, educator and author of nine books, Her watercolor drawings on paper have been accepted or forthcoming in MER, Synchronized Chaos, Saugerties Shout Out, Las Laguna Art Gallery exhibit in California, Spirit Fire Review, Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine. Jerrice has presented her art work at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, in June 2025. She’s been featured as a solo artist at the Cairo Public Library in Cairo NY, in an art exhibit at The Mountaintop Library in Tannersville NY in August-September 2025, and also a solo Exotic Birds Collection on January-February 2026 at Mountain Top Library, She participated in an art show called Shout Out Saugerties, NY.  Her most recent poetry book Coral in The Diaspora is published by Abode Press (August 2024). She is well published in Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Mantis and hundreds of others. Jerrice’s collaborative songwriting and poems are featured on the Grammy nominated album: Many Hands Family Music for Haiti. She teaches Authentic Poetry workshops in The Catskills, NY.