For the past 38 years, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle — poet, historian, teacher, mentor, civil rights activist, and Human Being — has quietly but relentlessly done her utmost to keep the sky from falling on her adopted hometown of Santa Barbara while shining her own unwavering and distinctive light in ways too countless to mention. Two weeks ago, Rolle — after waging her arduous struggle with cancer — moved into Serenity House, a hospice care facility.
In the past year, however, Rolle managed to speak on various writers’ panels and to publish a picture book about Juneteenth, Free at Last: A Juneteenth Poem. In it, she would write, “I claim the church / black and white / Holy Ghost and Methodist,” adding:
I claim the music
Jesus and Porgy
I claim Sunday
And all the mornings
that come
…
I’ve got to claim
The heavens
I’ve got to claim
The trees
The maples and the oaks
The spreading chestnuts
The weeping willow
And
Water
Oh my, water
Magic elixir
And
Birds
…
And light
And hate
And love.
She ended the poem with the line, “I claim love.” For anyone touched by Rolle’s work, her family is soliciting donations through the GoFundMe page.