A Pan-Abolitionist prayer for Leonard Peltier – a poem

Janet

6 months ago

June 14, 2024

By Julia Wright

“The only accounts we owe are to our children, the ancestors and those not yet born.”
Amílcar Cabral, whom I was honored to meet in Accra

just as we carry

our African roots

deep in the soil

of our ancestral memory

we live

and breathe

Pan Africanism

part of our praxis

and history

we pour libation to Kwame Nkrumah

and George Padmore

and T.R. Makonnen

and the freedom fighters

of the liberation movements

that trained

in Accra

to wrest independence

from the imperial vampire

we pour libation

to those who taught us

that the independence

of one African State

is nothing

unless it is connected

to the independence

of them all

and today

we vow we will not rest

till Leonard Peltier’s life

is wrested from the carceral empire –

we vow he will walk free

because his liberation

is connected

to the freedom

of them all

to the freedom of all political prisoners –

our own independence warriors

resisting

death by incarceration

to the freedom

of us all

tonight

we will light candles

till night’s end

and

at dawn

Pan Abolitionism –

the dream

in the gleam

of the eyes of our children

the ancestors

and those not yet born –

will begin to manifest

after our slavery-old quest

June 9, 2024.