I like doing laundry and folding the clothes

making green drinks and blue smoothies

riffing on old recipes created

by my grandmother Georgiana Vanhorn

Hanging out with my grandsons

teaching them to read

and playing word games

Poking my head into old churches

looking at the stained-glass windows

the Church of the Holy Trinity

and Our Lady of Perpetual Help

are my favourites

Zikhr-ing early in the morning

feeling the names echoing in my bones

thinking about what my grandfather Neil Campbell

looked like

they say he was tall and thin

Looking at murals by Alfaro and Orozco

reading Monet’s biography

and Kamau Brathwaite’s poems

Standing with you by the Christmas tree

decorating it with red, white, and green balls

thinking: “how can I win your love?”

***

Excerpted from Black Matters by Halifax poet laureate Afua Cooper and photographer Wilfried Raussert. Reprinted with the permission of Roseway, an imprint of Fernwood Publishing.

This poem first appeared in Broadview’s December 2020 issue.