Inspired by a recent poem by Emmanuel Phakathi titled "Who knows it feels it."

Your brush touches paint the same
Spread simple over varied canvas
Meant to make art for eyes
That ache for scenes of beauty
And such beauty is abound
In every nuanced color of our lives

We paints do not get to choose our color
Lead stepped in manure to produce white paint
never got to choose its fate
Nor did the dyes trapped in cochineal insect
destined to be crimson
Weep for all the ground-up bones
Used to enhance beautiful ebony tones
Or the powdered precious stones
Called ultramarine, translated "beyond the sea"

We paints don't get to choose our medium
Like wooden tapestries of African Artists
Rich and earthy, beyond beauty
Or painstakingly bound hempen thread
A dedication of Italian artwork
Or the unknown fresco origin
Which gave painters joy on the Isle of Crete
To the modern U.S. canvas
Made of cotton, PVC, and ingenuity

We do not choose our color
Red, white, black, green, yellow, blue
We do not choose our canvas
From developed nation to those without
We do not choose our origin
We do not choose our ethnicity
We can only choose our actions

I choose to believe
That we are all beautiful paints
Not meant to separate
But rather to blend together
In truest of beautiful form
And spread vivid hues of color
Across this tapestry of Earth