I Am Black and Comely

Neville's Inner Vision

Within the poem you, the inner Jerusalem, declare: I am black, but comely. This is not about shade, but the color of your inner experience when consciousness—your I AM—shines upon you. The sun hath looked upon me: recognizing awareness shines on your state, and you are not diminished by what seems outward. The mother's children who were angry with me are the inner critics and the social judgments that say you must be a certain way. They made me the keeper of the vineyards: you have taken on duties imposed by others’ expectations in your imagination. But mine own vineyard have I not kept: the neglected field of your own soul, your own desires, your true vocation. Neville tells you: return to the I AM and tend your own vineyard from within. See yourself as already complete, already comely, and standing in the light that reveals your worth. The world’s color and its heat become instruments of your inner realization, not proofs of lack. Your state becomes your scene; your imagination does the work.