Congratulations to Jaiden Lee for receiving second place, at the Be Empowered Poetry Contest, created in partnership with See Jane Write, LLC. This project was made possible with support from Create Birmingham, the City of Birmingham, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Born of Soil, Sun, Soiled Sun
In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Raw and reaching, pulled from the hollow hush.
Of earth, I came through the jagged jaws of the splintered stone, through fissures coughing up the breath of an everlasting joyous sun.
My skin was pressed from the caverns who guided the underground, damp and rich.
Stitched, with roots that stretched, alive.
The rivers ran, keeping my spirit true, the main source of my youth.
My fingertips kissed by the blue hush of dawn.
And when the wind curled against my back, it did not howl—it sang.
A hymn that felt like love.
I was Soil.
In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Sunlight pooled in the valleys of my skin,
gold dripping, spilling, making me something more than stone and soil.
Trees grew thick at my spine, arms outstretched, aiming to graze the heights of heaven.
Clouds stitched themselves into the corners of my mind,
lazy and laughing, rolling figurative shadows over the grass.
The rivers carried my secrets downstream, delivered them to the sea,
where the waves cradled them, quiet and knowing.
I was everything and endless.
I was Sun.
In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Soon time and I started a game of tag, and I never seemed to win.
Hungry and hurried they came,
touch peeled the green from my ribs,
cut open my breath and left me gasping in the dark.
The trees, once outstretched, bowed their heads in surrender.
Smoke curled in my lungs, immensely thick and choking,
They split my once powerful bones, carved them hollow,
pulled light from my veins and called it theirs.
They built themselves ladders, to climb through life,
while the very soul of my body was stripped.
A new distorted hymn I did not know.
I was Soiled.
In the beginning, was the creation of heaven and earth.
Though fractured and sore, I will not accept ruin.
I press seed to soil, whisper to the roots,
teach the wind my name again.
They cut me open, but they did not take it all.
My breath still lingers in the mist,
my veins still rush with the echo of rivers.
Even as my body aches under their weight,
I gather what remains—scattered light, quiet green, the hush of rain.
I will stitch myself whole again.
I will grow it from the dust.
Not as I was, but as I will be.
I will not be a Soiled Sun.
