Acres of Ancestry
by Dekera M. Greene Rodriguez and Tracy Lloyd McCurty
We are the living altar. We are the bold, boundless,
interdependent iteration of the Black imagination.
Our work is grounded in our specific and collective truths,
and we labor to restore ourselves and the land.
As granddaughters of Black agrarian women lightbearers
who repurposed sufferings into protective coverings,
we carry solutions to restore ecological harmony in our imaginations, hearts, and hands.
Collective leadership, spirituality, and ecology
are the patchwork pieces left by our grandmothers
to create abundant shared destinies.
This spiritual connection to our Earth and African Diasporic cosmologies and traditions expands our abilities to access timelines, lineages, and dimensions to create new,
life-affirming realities and ecosystems.