One Day 6 Years Ago…

This photo was taken by Rachel McShane on April 1, 2017 at Blissoma in STL, MO. The celebration of the first cycle of The Awakenings Project (Awakenings I)

This day is powerful because my best friend asked me to contribute a work to her project. I started blogging 4 months before, and had published 4 books via Amazon with the decade old poems that I had (Love Songs Of The Unrequited, Volumes 1-3).

I had no idea how all this would shake out, or go forward. I was stepping into a place familiar and foreign.

I was asked to add my voice to something—and I was honored. The Awakenings Project was an incubator for me as an artist, space holder, platform builder and…griot.

That piece (FIRST, AWAKENINGS) gave the mantra: “I AM SHE, SHE ARE WE.

After that reading, I got the confidence to start this ever April. This is now year 4.

I consider this my spoken word birthday!

It was my introduction into a world I had dreamt of as a girl with the active imagination! It is a mixture of love, relief and power whenever I remember this night.

I am grateful to my best friend who believed more in me than the man whom wanted to spend his life with me. Who still does believe in me.

Thank you, Marissa.

Thank you, The Awakenings Project.

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The Expectation Of Life

I’m in mourning. Pray for me. -JBH

I believe once you become conscious of your own mortality, you fight for immortality.

You change diet, illuminate stress, sleep more… doing anything to stop the clock or wind it back in a few years.

The great sadness of it all is that we know and ultimately this is futile. Will know there will be one day where the Reaper will come for us… Yet, we hope that the day is a long time off.

That day, where the world will miss us, and we will no longer be in the world, yet prepare for the Great Getting-Up Morning.

We expect those in our world to be a part of our lives as much as they can as long as they can.

We speak to their hopes: so their heart don’t fail.

We sow into the talents: so they may not be discouraged.

We ask them to stay. We plead with him to stay!

We believe God with them, for them, to stay.

And yet they slip through our fingers in early mornings. Or late nights. When we leave the room unattended.

They leave because they’re tired. Or uncertain. And we are forced into mourning clothes. And pray they don’t fit too tight.

Life is steady, linear… And unfair. Yet for the great unfairness of it all, perhaps it is best that we not walk the clock too closely.

Which makes us forget the Reaper is there…holding it.

-JBHarris, January 2023

Written after the death of my adopted brother LeArthur Antonio Lee at age 40.

NEW BOOK-Next Lifetime Things

Grab a copy on Amazon! The Kindle version is coming!

Thank you to Erykah Badu for Baduizm.

One of my favorite songs is, and may always be, Next Lifetime.

There is a honesty to this song, a wondering, and a realizing that while life is changing–so are you.

This collection of poetry was written about a year ago, and started with the work Reflections From A Back Porch Swing. This poetry collection tells of how my own body is aging and betraying me at points. I talk about the new relationship I accidentally fell into, and even the shifting nature of motherhood now.

Everything is happening, and I am in the everything! In this shifting levels of amazing, there is a peace I have found in these pieces. There is more of me in this work, as a realized, happy 41-year-old woman, than I ever had before.

This lifetime, this lifetime and next lifetime, is amazing!

National Poetry Month-2022

This will be the third year of doing this, and I get hype every year for it!

The work this year may be a little different, some published some not. There will also be the bonus of some work on my writer focused TikTok page: @shesgottapen2.5.

30 pieces here. 30 pieces there. Whew!

This year will be more intimate than the proceeding years. So much more has happened in the world, to me, and happening within me as I age.

All work can be found on Amazon by searching me as: Jennifer Bush-Harris and Jennifer P. Harris.

This will be most amazing, and I am here for it.

Here goes everything and Enjoy!

With Love & Ink,

JBHarris

30 DAYS OF JAYE: MotherBlood

My mother

Saint and sinner

Giver of life

and words

I wonder now

How can live

In this world

Without her?

-JBHarris, August 2020

30 DAYS OF JAYE: When Mothers Howl

They treat our children like monsters.

They treat our children like
monsters.

Then, they wonder

why we become monsters.

-JBHarris, April 2021

30 DAYS OF JAYE: The Cry Of Now

I know you said

You need all of me,

But what happens

When I need me back?

-JBHarris, 9.4.2019

30 DAYS OF JAYE: Focus

All need is for you to be good.

Focus on me

As if god were

Flesh and full-bodied

In front of you.

I will show

You in thought

And power

Your god is a woman.

-JBHarris, 2020

30 DAYS OF JAYE: #39

This piece is from the collection THINKING I’M GROWN. Available on Amazon. Click here to order.

Beauty, fire and grace.

Her Mama taught her

What class and grace do—

Her Daddy told her what

How to handle herself

When the unbelieving

Test you.

-JBHarris, 2020

30 DAYS OF JAYE: Say The Quiet Out Loud

I want nights

That are quiet,

And still

Loud as thunder,

I want storms in

Oceans of sheets

And limbs pulling

Me further from

What I know into

All I want.

I want the quiet parts

Said out loud

And kisses made only

For me,

And all my inner light

Being bother magic

And woman lit

By you.

I want the now

and the present presence

Of what it means to be

Lost and still be found.

From sky above

And Earth beneath

I want to dream

Of setting future

Suns…

Again.

-JBHarris