Design and empathy feed off each other in telling many tales.  One of these is the telling of Black America’s history and a guiding light into the future.

Afrofuturistic
by Michael Romani

Life can be a bit frantic
For the jaded fanatic
And the perfectionist
Both often too kinetic

In hip hop fashion
Black and red
Filled with passion
It plays in the head

Like the politics of color
Accidental in presence
But it makes you give a holler
At its understated significance

Afrofuturistic 
A bit derogatory in tone
Exploitive and mechanistic
Lost in its endless zone

An escape to the library
Provides its entry point
Toward breathing liberty
In its freedom that anoints

Line by line
The story self refines
There in the intricate design
As a story becomes yours and mine

Harlem moves and is alive
In its renaissance of boogie and jive
Sometimes a hoodlum's neighborhood
But its a journey taken as it should

Humbled by the hope of education
Given toward an honored dedication
In humanity, we can't help but reveal
All the beauty of truth that design instills

Appearance my not be everything
But it is very much a bit of something
In the telling of each tale
It's whispered and true; God is in the details

(c) January 14, 2020  Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved