Bob Moses: Gardener of Minds
Bob Moses: Gardener of Minds
By C Liegh McInnis
Your overalls fit you like a well woven truth,
as you have tilled the fields of our resources,
moving us from sharecroppers to social mathematicians.
You are a gardener, finding the rich minerals of the Earth
in soil left for waste by years of white erosion.
You put your hands deep into the soil of our brains
and cultivated capacious crops of communities.
You have shown us that the equation for liberation
is love + work = freedom.
You taught us that votes count if we count our votes,
that numbers are our shield and sword
in the battle for equality,
and that all voices matter if we matter to till and raise them.
With your edifying tools, you plowed our minds
and dropped seeds of the movement that swelled
in the bellies of our soul and produced fruit for the ages.
Your Algebra project projects primary numbers
to answer the call for new wheat to harvest
the next yield of mass movement.
C. Liegh McInnis is a poet, short story writer, author of eight books, former editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal, and internationally noted Prince scholar.