Written piece
Perpetual Threads
Jovanna Hepburn
Bahamas
About this piece
This piece is about our contribution, commonality and collective cadence which acknowledges being watered by the past, eating from the present and gathering for the future.
Caribbean needles threaded with pointed precision
A breathing testament to premeditated harmony
Diversity conspiring with its counterparts
Sharing not only rhythms but the beating of hearts
Alive!
Captured in the softness of skin
The fabric of beginnings
Contemporary threads simultaneously classic and fluid
Compared, but never competing; cogent
Each holding space in a global topography
Threatened by rising tides,
Restricted and un-rescued resources, and ignorant ideologies
Our Wealth – economic and intellectual capital –
Must be leveraged not lost
Leased not sold
Diaspora
Contexts don’t disqualify, rather amplify
Defining our inimitable roles in healing broken wholes
No ‘nexts’, but ‘nows’, new shoes for a new crowd
New breeds harvested from remnant seeds
Standing in individuality; rooted in ‘the knowing’
We are created for such a time as this
Catalysts crafting our own ‘New World’
Ordered by operating systems that don’t solely defer to the artificial –
Intelligence without instinct, awe and wonder
The irony of intellect creating intelligence, that unguarded threatens
Inventors … voices
Calculated ‘thoughts’ can never be spoken at the temperature of living
Hungry to re-present ourselves
Innovators and Inventors
Oceanic stewards
Storytellers – verbal and written
Artistic Re-framers
Iconoclasts leaving curated legacy
A collective cadence that is dominant but not divisive
A proactive presence with strategic answers
Global threads
Weaving uncommon wisdom
Daughters of Zelophehad
Sons of Isaachar