Black Lives Matter Mural Trail Scotland
2020 was the strangest year. So tough in many ways but some wonderful things also happened. I became an auntie again, found support in disabled and writing communities, leaned deep into writing poetry and had some poems published. One of the most exciting commissions I had was to create work for the Black Lives Matter Mural Trail Scotland.
The trail was developed by producer Wezi Mhura in response to the rise in awareness in Scotland (and across the world) of the Black Lives Matter movement. Read more about the trail, the locations and the artists involved on Wezi’s website.
The poem is called ‘Beloved Black’ and it is a poem filled with love for my Black Scottish and African-Caribbean family and the diaspora. Scroll down for an Instagram post with images and descriptions of the poem in situ outside the Museum of Edinburgh and a video of me reading the poem by the CAHSS (College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) Webteam, University of Edinburgh.
Beloved Black
Black is the absorption of all visible light
You are the sea at night
You are the hands that hold the stars in those early, wakeful hours
of parenthood
You are hope
Black was the first pigment used in art
You are charcoal soft
You are ancient stories handed down, whispers woven
through spacetime
You are the first
Black is the absorption of all visible light
Shadow-friend
You are the space that mourns the stars, trust and trusted,
shelter from storms
You are love
Black was the first pigment used in art
You are a poem
Boundless tones of ink dancing, across papyrus pages,
weaving word-magick
You are deep joy
Black is the absorption of all visible light
Eyes closed,
Let yourself be wrapped in an unexpected embrace
from an old friend
All pigments mixed together create Black
Elemental
You are the lively night,
in raining forests, gifting breath
Your revolution revolves around an axis: a raised fist
Quilted in memory,
you resist
Black is the absorption of all visible light
You are life
You are the scattered dust of stars, full-spectrum,
generating the cosmos throughout spacetime
You are a gift
View this post on Instagram
Jeda Pearl Lewis’ poem at Museum of Edinburgh from CAHSS Webteam on Vimeo.