The Task Of Our Time Poem by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

It is the task of our time to document the ways of our
time; their antecedents and authenticities. To show
the status of ritual as it is alive and in action now.

It is the task of our time to speak in the tongue of now
bringing forward the elders' elocutions the ancient
language, its patois.

It is the task of our time to communicate in terms
accessible to the most people, young and old and learned
of all ilks.

It is the task of our time to encounter technology to
develop its language to communicate it to the mass mind
to consort it with the hum of everyday.

It is the task of our time to swallow the stones of
Demosthenes, to cleanse the inner caverns where lies
cluster like streptococcus to drench each utterance in
healing truth.

It is the task of our time to reconcile the broken heart
with the balm of the joie de vivre.

It is the task of our time to kiss the wounded, to make
whole the rent fabric of our life.

We hold in common a dream of harmony.
What binds our hearts is our hope for peace
and our vision of a shared humanity.