She Rises

From the soil where pain once pressed,
She blooms—unapologetically dressed
In roots of power, deep and wide,
A lineage time could never hide.

Crowned in curls the sun adores,
She walks through history’s weathered doors
Not broken, but remade anew,
In every shade of proud and true.

She’s the echo of her mother’s song,
A whisper fierce, a heart grown strong.
What they called burden, she calls flame
A fire that dances with her name.

She sheds old doubt like winter's skin,
And dares the dawn to rise within.
Each scar, a map of where she’s been,
Each step, a storm she did not bend.

From silence, she carves out her speech,
From margins, dreams begin to breach.
And all that tried to dim her light
Now watch her claim sacred right.

She is the bloom in concrete cracks,
The gold that history tried to tax.
She is the breath of morning’s birth
Black woman, walking holy earth.

Rise again, and rise once more,
Each time more brilliant than before.
For growth is hers, rebirth her truth
The endless fountain of her youth.

- C. Hyde