Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,
I celebrate all women everyday. Today as I celebrate the collective I am compelled to give a special shout out to my sisters with this poem for them.
For My Sisters
by Lindamichellebaron,
For my sisters, who grew up in a life of love
from families who reminded us to
wear clean underwear,
make sure we combed our hair,
and told us how we didn’t have to show up everywhere…
“Let them miss you sometime.”
For my sisters,
taught to make sure we oiled our knees,
said “thank you” and “Please.”
And ask God to bless whoever sneezed.
And goodness knows,
keep your legs closed and your ankles posed.
“Head up, shoulders back, stand up straight…”
Always, always, always be a lady
For my sisters
taught to dress to impress,
and expected to always do our best…
“Whatever you do…even if you sweep the floor,
be the best floor sweeper there is, or ever was…”
For my sisters
who grew up knowing “we will overcome,”
even if we didn’t or don’t know how
We knew and know there is no stopping us now,
We step into the beauty of being black
And accept the power that won’t allow us to be held back….
For my sisters
Women who walk and work with wisdom and wonder,
No negative thoughts or deeds allowed
With God as our anchor
We make a people proud
Thank you my sisters,
Who embrace the struggle and each other in love, wisdom, truth and power
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Dear Friends, Family and Fans,
Happy Valentine's Day
From Me To You!!!

So What if it Doesn’t Last?
By Lindamichellebaron, copyrighted circa 1970’s
I wrote this poem when I was in my twenties. It was first published in a book called, “Going Through Changes.” It is now in my poetry collection, “For the Love of Life.” Feel free to go on my website, www.mylindamichellebaron.com, if you’d like to locate the book, and read more.

You know it never lasts forever,
So you promise yourself
You’ll never take another ride.
When someone comes with promises,
You’ll promptly step aside
No more being made a fool.
No more repetitions of the past.
You’re older and you’re wiser now
Life has taught, “It never lasts.”
You know it never lasts forever,
So you prevent any new collisions.
You use memories that rename you “Fool”
To make your life’s revisions.
You carefully avoid reflections
Of the good times in that past,
As you foolishly forget
You have to live love while it lasts.
You know it never lasts forever.
So, why worry about that now?
You know it never lasts forever.
So, why miss these forevers
While they last?
I hope I never get too old to welcome the possibilities, the promise, the challenge of forevers.
Love and realness,
#lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,
My Birthday Wish:A Reflection of the Times...I love celebrating my birthday. I celebrate the entire month. I am so thankful for life. This year for my celebration I am taking the time to honor the young man whose life and death will be yet another catalyst for change. I honor him by dedicating my life to nurturing future and current educators with the courage, tenacity, deep care to teach the hate out of our country’s men, women and children. Override the injustices to teach so that we can make the world more just…one child at a time…maybe even one lesson at a time.

I am an educator. I became a teacher in the 5th grade when I taught everyone I could…friend or foe, how to read with expression. My dream then was to make a difference by making reading a joy. As I grew my definition of making a difference shifted. I began to believe that I could be one of a cadre of people who could change the world. I was born into a time of resistance and activism to a people who fought, lived and died for me. I wanted my life to honor them and their prayers, hopes and dreams for me and those of mine yet to be born. Maya says it best…”I am the dream and the hopes of the slave”

As I prepare to celebrate my life…my birth, I find myself asking what I can do to make the difference that still needs to be made? How do I use the gifts God has given me to over-ride the hate…embedded in the mind, body, and spirit. I can I help over-ride the self-loathing, and hatred of others. Growing up, some of us heard a parent get the switch and admonish the child telling them, “I’m going to beat the Black off of you.” Is that what they were trying to do? Beating the Black of themselves by beating Tyre Nichols…for being guilty of being black. Could they beat him enough…and others like him, young gifted and black to make themselves feel worthy? Are young black men their sacrificial lambs?

I can’t help but look at the photos of the elite squad of officers of the law who became murderers. When those photos were taken you know their families…mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, fathers, sons, uncles, grandparents, and communities of people celebrated their achievements. They were the ones who made it. They overcame the streets, low expectations, misrepresentations, micro and macro aggressions to become men in a position of honor. They probably had dreams of being a policeman as little boys, being the good guys when they grew up. They were our success stories. Some of us search to discover our “why” when we are becoming whatever it is we dream of being. Is that why big enough to discard the deep-seated loathing enshrined through society’s misrepresentations based on race, religion, nationality, ethnicity? How can the venom of people maligned throughout history, then barely taught…and now going undercover with laws to enshrine a massive coverup of atrocities here where we have super heroes whose creed is “truth, justice and the American way.” How did the malice and hatred against people of color find itself rooted so deeply into these officers of the law’s subconscious minds, bodies and spirits that they could kill their own. Actually, to do unto a young African American man what could have been done to each of them at any point in their lives. Could have been done unto their biological brothers, sons, nephews, fathers, uncles.

There is no one answer. I only know I must do what each of us must do…that is to do something. Take who we are, what we are, what we do, how we do it…to use it to make more than a living…or to go beyond being celebrated. Do something so that we will become the change we seek. Then when we sing happy birthday to us…we can sing for the births, the lives, the dreams, the activism, the sacrifices of the countless generations of us upon whose shoulders we stand.
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,
I wrote the poem below to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Together We Are the Dream Made Manifest by Lindamichellebaron
Together we can be the dream in the middle of a nightmare
Together we can check the continuing metaphoric train wreck
Together we celebrate MLK’s Inspiration,
Codifying the great American aspiration,
Advocating with fierce determination
We are the personification of MLK’s dream…
An overlay embedded in the American Dream…
Steeped in liberty and social justice
We practice what he preached
We don’t have to scream the dream…we are awake in it
Together with the power of us
We redefine the paradigm
Together…Energized, and mobilized with all of our infinite possibilities recognized
Together we are the dream…Waking up America
The content of our character in tact…Young, old, gifted… brown, together we manifest the dream!

Copyright: Lindamichelle Baron. All Rights Reserved

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,

Happy New Year!!! This year I am working on being a better me!!! Please join me!
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

A Better Me by Dr. Lindamichelle Baron
I’m living life, every minute.
Not looking back, just being in it.
Old comes quick. That’s what I know.
I feel too young to take it slow.
I’m not all I’m supposed to be
From who you are and what you see
But I’m becoming a better, badder
More awesome me!!
Not worried about my shape or face
My hair defies time and space.
It can be grey, down to the root.
Don’t need to be young to think I’m cute.
Dark spots speckle my skin
But I’m rocking the skin I’m in
I won’t be quiet. I won’t be still
I’m going to be and do just what I will
I don’t need to be the ultimate beauty
Or strut around the perfect booty
My cellulite can crack and crinkle
My body can be one big wrinkle
But I talk that talk clear and smooth
Walk my talk with every move
My body is shrinking, but I’m not small
My essence is straight up, proud and tall.
I’m not what you want me to be
From who you are and what you see
But I’m becoming a better, badder,
More awesome me!!
Yes, I’m becoming a better, badder,
More awesome me!!!
Copyright Lindamichellebaron, 2019

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,
Happy Kwanzaa!!!I celebrate Kwanzaa with each of you. I invite you to buy a book to share with your family. Give the gift of the literary arts. In fact, you probably also have books at home you haven't yet read. Bless yourself by making the time to read. And I even recommend Audiobooks for those of us who can't squeeze in as much time as we'd like to read. Don't forget the library during this season of introspection, rejuvenation, collective love and life.
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,
Merry Christmas!!! I'm sending love and more love to all of you during this season and beyond. I feel your love. It's because of that love that I was honored as the Town of Hempstead's first Poet Laureate. I know the focus of the award is poetry. But I have been fortified, energized and motivated by each of you... wherever in the world you may be.
And today I thank God for so many of His gifts to me... but especially for the gift of His son, Jesus Christ.
Let's amplify the love and make sure Christ is in every aspect of our celebration of Christmas.
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Dear Friends, Family and Fans,
We celebrate veterans every November 11th. Initially this day was called Armistice Day, to memorialize the day and time, (the 11th hour on the 11th day of November,1918) that the treaty was signed which ended World War 1, the Great War, called “the war to end all wars.” Obviously, all things hoped for are not necessarily the reality. There have been so many wars since. Men of African descent have fought for our country in every single war, declared or not declared…and yet when these brave soldiers returned to the country for which they fought, they were not treated as heroes, nor even as humans. So often they returned home having to fight the wars of racism, bigotry, and hate. The hopes and even the assertions made in our country’s documents, and anthems regarding all people believed to be equal under God who should be afforded equal rights under the law are aspirational, hoped for, and unfortunately, not yet the reality. And still we rise. And still we support. And still we believe that what this country insists is its practice and beliefs will one day become more than aspirational…and will become the reality for all. We, as a people, continue to fight for this; we continue to pray for this; we continue to hope for this; and we continue to vote for this. Today we thank all veterans for their service, and we give special thanks to our heroes of the African Diaspora, who have fought for this country in-spite of the ways in which this country has not fully embraced them. Let’s speak their names, honor them, and thank them. Think of our heroes, pray for our heroes, and ensure that our heroes are celebrated on this Veterans Day and every day. God bless them and “our country tis of the”…that will one day, it will truly become, “sweet land of liberty.” Of this I sing.


Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans,
Exactly one week away, Tuesday, November 8th,its time to VOTE!! Many of us have been bemoaning, groaning, stressing, obsessing, and depressing.
Now is the time to do something about it! Keep praying…for those of you who do. I know I do, and I am. I am aligning with my prayers.
I am practicing what I preach. Stand up, get up for your rights. Walk your talk…to the polls.
It looks like it’s gonna take a miracle to overcome the hate-filled, anti- Democracy behaviors of these times. We are the miracle.
So, let us coalesce…walk together, children… with other miracle workers and: march, dance, jump, skip, hop, walk, wheelchair, walker, cane, crawl...
to the polls and…by any means necessary…VOTE. Take others with you. This is your assignment…be in alignment, for a time such as this.
Even if you are not yet documented…take those who are to the polls. To quote President Obama, during his recent speech in Wisconsin,
and probably everywhere else he has spoken, “Don’t boo, VOTE!!” Take your children with you so they can witness you …”being about it”
rather then seeing you sitting at home, complaining about it.
Love and realness,
#Lindamichellebaron
www.mylindamichellebaron.com