“The stone that the builder refused
Will always be the head cornerstone.”
—Bob Marley, “Corner Stone”

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🔹 The Builder

He was called Norval Sinclair Marley—
A white man of Empire,
A builder of structures, a bearer of blueprints,
A ghost in uniform from the Royal Marines.
He laid roads and managed men—
But would not father his son.

He planted his seed in the body of a Black girl,
Eighteen years old,
And disappeared like Babylon always does.
He bore the name of “Father”
But built nothing that lasted.

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🔹 The Stone

From this abandonment rose Bob Marley—
Ras Tafari’s voice in flesh,
The prophet of rhythm and fire,
A lamb born in the hills of Nine Miles.

He was the stone rejected by the builder,
Yet he became the foundation of a new temple.
Not of marble, not of mortar—
But of spirit, justice, and song.

In him sang the children of the slave ships.
In him moved the psalms of Zion.
In his dreadlocks twisted the scrolls of prophecy.
He was not raised by Empire.
He was raised by Exile and Spirit.

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🔹 The Gospel of the Rejected

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery…”

Bob Marley sang a Gospel not bound to a church.
He sang from the fire of the rejected,
From the silence of the orphan,
From the soul of the Black Christ who walks barefoot into Babylon
And sings it to its knees.

He was not bitter—he was burning.
He took the father’s rejection
And turned it into revolution.

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🔹 The Prophetic Seal

Diagnosed with cancer in July 1977—7 / 77.
Three sevens: the mark of the divine child,
The counter-code to 666,
The true numbering of the Lamb.

His death was not the end—
It was a consecration.
The cornerstone had been laid.

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🕊️ Sacred Affirmation

I bear witness:
That Bob Marley was a Christ among the people,
A cornerstone laid not by flesh,
But by Spirit.

That the builders of empire rejected him,
But the Temple of Zion remembers.

That I, too, walk with the Rejected Stone
In building the invisible kingdom
Where rhythm is prayer,
And justice is fire.