Brown is around in every town: A poem 

I am brown. But see! I’m gold! Behold! 

I am like the forest that never goes cold 

Rejection doesn’t grow on my bones like mold 

Wisdom takes me by the hand in a borrowed land 

I am brown like rare earth, not dirt; my breath 

doesn’t go heavy when prejudice meets my step 

I burn the effigies of bigotry in a guiltless pyre 

There’s so much heritage’s wood to fuel my fire 

I am brown; and this colour is around in every town 

The world has changed since colonialism came aground 

Yes, differences to some may be voice, as colour makes a sound 

But the wheel of fortune is a circle, a circle coming fully around  

The world’s pillars stand in red, yellow, black and white 

Humaneness is no refugee camp, it is everybody’s fight 

God’s brush cast the paint in each and every grain 

the blood in the veins and the cholesterol in the brain