Lyrics
They grew up without saying I am
In broken and mended families
Where the man carries the present the name
The woman carries the might be
The man carries tomorrow
The woman carries a bent future
One that never stood straight
A family tongue
Can say I am or I ain’t
I’m just a fading trace
Or I’m what stays
That tongue can make you present
Or rub you clean away
I wipe out
Who you are
I’d sing some
But I can’t rightly
I’d talk some
But I don’t rightly know
Still I’ll go on now
I’ll fix the coffee
Order in the memory of words
Is saying I when the other says go
It’s doing when the other waits
It’s being a quiet kind of knowing
And staying put
I carry my name when they call me
I carry my body when it lies down
I carry wakefulness while others sleep
And I am the presence that feeds
I am I have been
The ignorant one
Is the woman of before
Speaking a crooked tongue
With words folks don’t use no more
Words of women
Who were still mothers
Who raised their young
In a yielding speech
To the one who says go on
Like it’s a war
These hands got wore down talkin’
These hands done held on long
That’s our grandmamas
They ain’t gone nowhere yet
I carry my name when they knock
I carry my body standing straight
I carry wakefulness when others fall
And I am the presence that feeds
I am I have been
Waking the courage of these women
Means driving their doubts back home
Letting them stand as women
When the country remembered
They had been there all along
It asked them to feed the nation
To bind themselves to it
They were mothers and workers
They became flag bearers
And in the roots of to be I am
They became the other half of man
The mother beside the father
The second pillar of the house
I carry my name when I’m welcomed
I carry my body when it sits
I carry wakefulness while others talk
And I am the presence that smiles
I am I have been
That good family man they wrote in law
Turned into a woman still becomin’
Feedin’ folks and talkin’ plain
Sayin’
I ain’t what I was
War done passed through me
I’m what I had to be
Now I don’t breathe
In a man’s leavin’ breath
I breathe in the breath of care
I breathe in the breath of Mama
The one they call when things go wrong
I take in worlds and times
I let out breath that crosses years
I give more than I get back
Cause sense is a kind of sun
I carry my name like tomorrow
I carry my body like something dear
I carry wakefulness like a sure hope
And I am the presence that feeds
I am I have been
I’d sing some now
Ain’t nothin’ stoppin’ me
I’d talk some now
All I need
Is learnin’
Credits & ownership