Louis Alemayehu

Akhenaten’s Dream: SunRise!

Beyond your flesh
Beyond your room
your house
your piece of ground,
your town.
Beyond your state, region or country,
Beyond your continent or island,
Beyond the 3rd Stone from the Sun – our sweet Mother Earth,
Beyond your mother, father, family, nation, race, class and gender
Beyond all that…


Yeah, beyond capitalism, socialism, racism, class-ism, nationalism,
and the FASCISM that loves all our ISMS of what ever flavor,
Yeah, beyond Jesus, Jonah, Buddha, Mohamed, Musa, Joseph Smith,
and all the Devine Mothers cradling us,
cradling us all, all,
Beyond our hunger for oil, gas, coal, uranium and wood
burning, burning, burning,
daily choking
the life from the precious air we breath
and all that breathes us,
Beyond roach dust,
mercury and lead choking the life from the lungs, brains and nervous tissue of our babies,
Beyond our tears of joy or rage
Beyond all our graves!
Beyond
Politics,
Sociology,
Spirituality,
Our humanity or the latest theory -
Which we now think explains it all,
Beyond all we believe is either grief or joy
Who really knows distances in this vastness called Universe?
Who really knows the cost of our comfort?
Of all the petty energy consuming stuff we think we have a right to:
“Central heating
Air conditioning,
Cars,
Airplanes
Electric lights
Inexpensive clothing,
Recorded music, movies, hip replacement surgery and
Your national defense!”
If you love your Country more than the Earth that cradles her,
If you keep burning the fuel of fossils,
You are dumping in your living rooms
You are torching your rafters
Feeding your babies a formula full of arsenic, mercury and lead.


Wake up and live now
In Sunflower Splendor!
Open Morning Glory!
Wake up for the first time and LIVE!


What you have a right to is the Natural World.
What you have a right to is your movement through Seasons.
Embodied or not, as everything turns, turns, turns…
We are dancing inside Nearness
Dancing in the Sacred Web of Life made of
Mud and starlight
Semen and seasons
Novas and notions
Stardust and the chorus of all singing planets known and un.
(What? There’s a new one now???)
Anthills’ industrious grit and constellations spilling
‘cross the unnamed expanses of sweet home AllWhere,


Ultimately, who we are is not the bag of skin we are in.
Our energy spreads throughout all that is Creation:
Tendrils woven and weaving through all Mother-matter, touching.
We are touching all things all the time in Unity,
whether we know it or not.
We are flying-spinning through Space,
All the time timelessly, endlessly, eternally, infinity!
What a trip! Feel it!


And now I press my palm against your heart-breast,
I speak softly to you, as you see it and feel it now too:
I see you now with the eyes of my heart,
No enemy, no other…
Transformed, revealed, awakened and naked,
Crying for a Vision now quaking,
Beyond this global war zone of our own making,
The stuff of conflict, greed, arrogance & fear,
Will this be the inheritance of our babies’ babies’ babies?
Will our babies have babies?
Will they survive?
Will they want to?


Touch me brother with kinds hands,
Embrace me sister with hope-heart (we are safe in this wisdom).
Death has no dominion over Life,
Death is a twin to Life - a ying/yang unity of unending Life
In all its forms and possibility.
Touch beyond all boundaries and identities fearlessly,
Let us all Touch the Earth with naked feet
And be glad!


For the Earth to live America must die…
Yeah I said it!
For the Earth to live America must die!
For the Earth to live ALL nations must die.
For the Earth to live Germany
Spain
England
Egypt
Azania
China and Guatemala and all their sisters,
All must die, must be transformed.


The Snow will make us friends.
The Rain will make us family.
The Sun will melt all hearts,
All Gods chillin gonna have rhythm now.
The Wind will teach us a New Song that everyone can sing,
ROBUSTLY! Rooted in a Deep Democracy beyond what we know now.


*Listen!
My friends are committing suicide now…
To me it says something about how toxic our environment has become.
They don’t want to be here anymore.
It’s become physically, spiritually - toxic!
To me it begs the question of,
How do we recognize what is Sacred in our lives and be centered in that?
How do we recognize the green sprouts coming through the concrete and treasure that?
How do we recognize where the renewal is emerging and become one with that?
How do we “Walk the Way of the New World”?


Wherever we are going, We must all go together or not go at all!


There are spaces in the Heart as vast as the Universe,
And who knows distances in this vastness…?
I see you now. I see you now. I see you now…
So touch me now with kind hands
In this mornings’ glory!
Transformed, revealed, awakened, naked
With kind hands, hand in hand in hand…
Gripping! I got you now! I got you now!
Stepping gently on this Holy Earth
Striding toward…
SunRise!

Copyright by Louis Alemayehu

Biography
Louis Alemayehu is a writer, educator, administrator, poet, father, grandfather, performer and activist of African and Native American heritage.  Louis is a cofounder of the Native Arts Circle, the oldest Native American artists organization in the Upper Midwest. In 2000, Alemayehu's poem, Thrones, was cast in bronze and installed within the Phillips Urban Gateway, an inner city public art installation in Minneapolis. Along with composer/musicians Carei Thomas and David Wright, he was a founding member (1981) of the poetry/jazz ensemble, Ancestor Energy. Both the Loft and IntermediaInterMedia Arts. In 1993 he was awarded a LIN (Leadership in Neighborhoods) Grant from Saint Paul Companies as a community based artist. In 2003 the Headwaters Foundation gave Louis an award for life-long commitment to social justice. Currently, Alemayehu’s work focuses on teaching, writing, performance, mentorship, community organizing, charter schools and organizational development. Samples of his Ancestor Energy CD, AllWhere, can be heard online at cdbaby.com. Today, Louis works deeply across multiple cultural communities with Ce Tempoxcalli for Chicano arts and education; with AfroEco for food security; with Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota for green economic development; with Multicultural Indigenous Academy for intercultural education; with the Women’s Environmental Institute on health disparities and Finote Tibeb for Ethiopian cultural arts and language preservation. In 2009 the Minnesota Spoken Word Association recognized Louis for his 30 years of excellence and innovation in performing spoken word in the Upper Midwest.

CD Ancerstor Energy: Allwhere