If you missed part 1 of Portrait of Dynamic Soul-Warrior Dr. Patricia M. Stewart and would like to read it, PLEASE CLICK HERE. Part 2 with concluding poem and reflections begins now:

It was amazing to witness her winning tennis championships in her 70s, and winning a battle against COVID-19 in her 90s when science declared the odds stacked against her. It was astounding to see so many others benefit from the increasing luminosity of her spiritual clarity as she continued to provide counsel, empowerment, and guidance for them even as she fought her own personal battles on a daily basis. A “phenomenal woman,” as Maya Angelou might have said,  indeed.

I mentioned before the inevitability of poetry developing from the meeting of our minds-hearts-souls. What follows is a dialogic example which began composing itself of both our voices several years ago and which took on its present form over the past few weeks.

I.
Once, when talking with my Beloved Phenomenal Friend,
my soul complained about senseless cruelties in the world,
about the way ignorance had demolished democracy,
and demagogues rained bombs on little boys and girls.

“In a time such as now,” my Friend replied, “it’s people like you
who weave word fabric for embodied life and tent-tapestry
weaving and repair. With unlimited imagination these are
primary corners holding up life, artistry and lure of language.”

II.
Sometimes, in unexpected hours on uncertain days,
my heart would drum rhythms of rage and  anxiety
over human beings’ disregard for Mother Earth,
over the way too many abused her precious sanctity.

“For me,” said my Friend, “there’s a place and space here
to hum, mumble, rap, testify and wander into a broad
complementary belonging that is an accumulative process
of corners of prayer, peace, prosperity and planetary survival.”
 
III.
Certain moments would arrive, every now and then,
when in meditation or a dream I would sit with my Friend,
we would gather broken fragments of trust and belief,
then glue the shattered-heart pieces back together again.

“We’ve got such an embodiment of brilliance
in the light spectrum of blessings! I’m finding born
light that is a source of joy. It is holding corners
of umbilical literacy as storage and loving space.”
 
lV.
In deep meditation still. Or a dream. Blessed with an image
of us on a grassy hill laughing at pompous drunk kings
angrily chasing butterflies they could never claim––
making light in your eyes laugh and tears in my voice sing.

“Looking and capturing trips and stories that stay tuned,
and soaring in the slopes. My ongoing wandering and wondering
is the charge and channel for giving eyes and effort to
an Ubuntu collection of gifts to ‘heaven havens on earth.’”

V.
Toni Morrison said this for us: that the word “goodbye”
has little meaning for a companion to one’s mind.
Whether at joyful day’s beginning or lonely night’s ending––
one bird trilling jazz, and another gospel, remain two of a kind.

“My friend I’ve been in a Genesis world of change. The sweetest
moment that holds grace as a forever priceless belonging—gifted.
Making life for corners that refresh, reclaim, the energy of love
holding it up. Mellow and glorified… and soaring in the slopes.”

(by Aberjhani and Patricia M. Stewart, Jan 2019 – Jan 19, 2026)

​Considering the origins and definitions associated with her name, everything about Dr. Patricia Metheuse Stewart made and makes sense: “Patricia,” indicating a graceful aristocratic bearing or manners of nobility; “Matheus,” meaning “Gift of God/Yahweh”; and “Stewart,” as in steward, or guardian of the house. That others appreciated these qualities in her was celebrated while she lived when the Georgia State Assembly, in honor of her 2019 90th birthday, named her  one of Georgia’s Outstanding Citizens. To put it another way, members of the Assembly realized she was an extremely valuable guardian of at least one corner of the state over which they had been given official charge.

Moreover, in her diverse roles as a grandmother, university professor, senior VP for social service organizations, and authority on religious education, she was (and remains) for me nothing less than a dynamic soul warrior. Meaning someone fully committed to, and engaged in, efforts to heal the wounded spirits of individuals and communities traumatized by heinous disregard. As such, her practice of embracing people from various backgrounds with love and compassion was never subordinate to that of employing intellectual brilliance to right social wrongs. They were intertwined, both designed like the threads in her metaphor of the tent woven by a tapestry weaver, to shield us from the more destructive forces of human beings' sometimes unkind nature.

The same way the state of Georgia celebrated Dr. Stewart’s many contributions to her community, numerous friends, family, and colleagues celebrated Pat’s extraordinary character beyond regional boundaries during a remembrance observation held on Zoom, December 28, 2025. A diverse group of online attendees, granddaughter Taylor Stewart and grandson Sydney Stewart among them, shared remarkable stories of her impact upon their lives. Some spoke of studying together, working with her on community projects, or receiving assistance on dissertations, while others recalled playing tennis with her, being nursed back to health by the doctor within her home, and traveling with her to France for a conference on Toni Morrison. Common to all was a profound sense of love and gratitude.  

When news reached me in mid-December 2025 of my Friend’s passing at the age of 96, I thought of how tremendously blessed I had been to know her for as long as I did. I recalled clearly that evening she first walked into my store, and life, with her friend Dessie Baker. Dessie returned to New Jersey several years before Pat’s transition and I, in fact, alluded to our first meeting in a tribute poem titled Where Only Freedom Reigned, dedicated to Dessie upon her death in 2023. Passages from different spiritual texts on the wisdom of treating strangers with kindness––such as “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (KJB Heb. 13:2), and the story of the unknown “honored guests” (The Qur'an, Adh-Dhariyat 51:24–27)––  came to mind. I was glad I had heeded them.

Now, instead of connecting with my Friend at book signings and lectures and historic events, or exchanging emails, texts, and returned calls, we would have to hold our chats in dreams. I consider that a blessing as well.

​Anyone wishing to comment on this article is invited to do so in the section below the contact form.

Aberjhani
Author of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days
and Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Almost three decades ago, I had the good fortune of meeting one of the most remarkable human beings I have ever encountered in the different places I have called home in this world. It happened during my time as a bookseller at Media Play on the southside of Savannah, Georgia. That was when Dr. Patricia M. Stewart, along with her friend Dessie E. Baker, walked into my store one evening. They smiled when they saw me conducting an open mic poetry program which had been taken over by elementary-school students enthusiastically spitting their poetic fire.

Dr. Stewart, who insisted I call her Pat, and Dessie stayed after the program and said they were newly transplanted to savannah, the former from Ohio and the latter from New Jersey. The had visited the store at the suggestion of the other doctor in Pat’s family, her son Mark, who himself had been happy to discover the extensive selection of Afrocentric titles I maintained.

They asked if I could direct them to any other interesting cultural arts-oriented events, places, and people. I could and did. That was the beginning of a long association with someone who would become many things for me. In her words: a Spiritual Sister, Mother, Friend. In my words: a Beloved Friend, Sister, Mentor.
​
That she viewed me as a kind of son seemed natural enough. During Mark’s visits to my store, we often ended up talking about everything from the miseducation and resulting  exploitation of different population groups around the world, to the best and worst entertainment happenings in downtown Savannah. He, for example, suggested I add Paulo Freire’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed to my inventory. I in turn advised him to pre-order the limited first edition of Henry Louis Gates’ and Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (with decorative carrying case) at 40 percent off. Through shared and sometimes opposing perspectives, we became like brothers, until I gave up my job in 2000 to become a full-time caregiver and striving author.

Despite the 28-year age gap between us, Pat and I found we had a lot in common. We both knew the lingering ache of losing a child, had a passion for any book downloaded from the mind of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, believed ourselves anchored by our personal spirituality, and shared the same birth month.

We remained connected through attendance at public lectures on the cultural arts, or when I was giving a rare book signing and she turned up to lend support. She later began sending emails in which she recommended different articles to check out, or  included links to videos of  services she felt particularly significant held at Asbury Memorial Church (on Savannah’s east side) and posted on YouTube. Phone calls and texts, in which we shared motivation and funny stories about how my bohemian reclusiveness tended to clash with more public displays of grandeur preferred by some known figures, also came later. 

At some point, our friend Dessie invited me to join them for one of Asbury’s “God on Broadway” series productions. That visit prompted me to attend a number of special services and programs at the church over the years that followed, and attempt to render my experiences there in forms of visual art.

Somehow, maybe a decade after fulfilling my duties as a caregiver, a small group of our mutual friends ended up at my home after encountering each other at the opening of an art exhibit. We felt compelled to escort Pat, or “Doc” as one friend preferred to call her, to the plush recliner that used to serve as my mother’s matriarchal throne. The gesture was not to imply that Pat was taking anyone’s place but it was where we felt a concentration of certain energies. So we made a circle around her and prayed for her well-being, sustained focused purpose, and the protective love of all those she encountered. We then moved to the dining table in the next room, broke out one or two bottles of wine along with some barbecued chicken wings and other fun edibles, and partied a little bit.  

Readers of The American Poet Who Went Home Again may recall my reference to the following quote read on a magnet attached to Pat’s refrigerator when having dinner at her home one evening: “And in between these rocks and hard place, I am making diamonds.” Those words would see me through any number of painful challenging times.
​
Ours was a language of metaphors, exploratory concepts, and humor which probably would have annoyed some people. In my case, it was inevitable that her background as an educator, psychologist, cultural preservationist, and community consultant, as well as the manner with which she embodied individual style and intellectual intention, would inspire my pen to compose poems in her honor. 

Just before the pandemic, we enjoyed a gathering of creative thinkers at a launch party for artist Suzanne Jackson’s groundbreaking 2019 Five Decades exhibition at the Jepson Center for the Arts. She and Jackson indulged me by posing for a couple of minutes as models for an abstract digital painting. Once the pandemic took over the entire world, we became co-authors with Pat providing the foreword for a currently unpublished coffee table book called Black and Blue Letters from the Red Zone.

“A real life metaphor for me is that of a  tapestry weaver,” she wrote. “…The challenge is to recognize the details of the many threads, the nature of the breaks in the tent, the source of the threads and the humanity that it protected.” It is a metaphor very much in alignment with the South African Nguni Bantu term “Ubuntu,” which speaks to how our shared humanity defines, connects, and sustains us all.  

​In addition to contributions from different writers around the world, the artbook features my novice original digital paintings and photography paired with the texts. When plans to publish the complete art book stalled, both an eBook and trade paperback edition of the volume were published with an opening quote from Pat’s original foreword. The cover art for the paperback was inspired by our conversations about the historical site of what in Savannah is referred to as The Weeping Time.      

Positioning African American history within truthful contexts was important to her. We were both too busy to arrange to meet at the February 10, 2024, dedication ceremony for Taylor Square but somehow ended up connecting there anyway. The historic occasion was still fresh in our minds two days later when I emailed her: “…Beloved Friend-Sister-Community-Champion. Very grateful for the chance to spend time with You and attending Warrior-Queens at Taylor Square dedication Saturday. Copied you earlier today on emails with photos to LB & F. I’ll be sorting through everything for quite some time….”

“Being on that square with you and so many friends,” she wrote back, “was spirit filling love––an Ubuntu covering. And your email is a receipt.”

She reminded me of this more than a year later with a text on Juneteenth:

“To you and your soul work as a storyteller/wordsmith, Ubuntu… I’m remembering and embodying my experiences of path crossing with you. That’s one of my Juneteenth Glory generational moments to wrap around today. It holds my imagination for future celebrations and consolations.”

To which I responded: “Gratitude for the blessing of these words. My sacred remembrance on this 2025 Juneteenth Day is that of you dancing with the youth in Susie King Taylor Square on its dedication day. That videoed image is often my morning call to action, and my evening claim to resilience. Your soul-light is shining Truth & Beauty everywhere.”

NEXT: To read the concluding part 2 of Portrait of Dynamic Soul-Warrior Patricia M. Stewart featuring a poem by Dr. Stewart and Aberjhani PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Anyone wishing to comment on this article is invited to do so in the section below the contact form.

By Aberjhani

A recent article on the poetry of Marc Thomas, the author of Talking to the Machines and Oher Poems, made me think about why, and how much, I have always enjoyed celebrating National Poetry Month. As with Thomas’s work, which I first became aware of during a Local Author Day event in Savannah, Georgia (USA), it has largely been about the discovery of what different poets bring to their individual applications of literary craftsmanship.

A lot of people cheered and applauded when the news broke in 1996 that the Academy of American Poets was launching observations of the inaugural National Poetry Month (NPM) annual celebrations. The Academy encouraged individual writers and organizations everywhere to participate in ways that suited them best. Creatives in my hometown responded to the call by putting on events where many would expect to find them: like libraries, schools, bookstores, and coffee shops.  Others hosted happenings at unexpected locations: like nightclubs, churches, bars, parks, and river-front walkways. 

As one of the organizers of such events, I was happy to help make spoken-word presentations by both local and national talents, as well as literary panel discussions, accessible to members of diverse communities. In addition, my position as an editor for the Savannah Literary Journal allowed me to publish works by such future city and state poet laureates as: Darryl Lorenzo Wellington of Sante Fe, New Mexico; and, Anis Mojgani in Oregon. Possibly more thrilling than anything else was occasionally witnessing an audience member “catch fire” for the first time and begin composing their own lines at one event, then reciting them at the next.

It is well known that poetry, as many understand it today, had its beginnings long before written expressions of it. Common belief proposes it developed during prehistoric times as an extension of, or variation on, storytelling. My own theory is that poetry initially evolved out of instinctive spontaneous prayers uttered as appeals to nature or to unknown, but suspected, higher powers. Viewed through such an intuitive transcendent lens, it was amazing to observe how different neophytes, centuries later, made their personal connections to this ancient practice.

There came, year after year, scholars who adapted their long-restrained literary passions to such academic formulations as sonnets, odes, and villanelles (a favorite among friends at the Poetry Society of Georgia) with respectful nods to Japanese haiku (with which I’ve experimented for a series of angel poems published in The River of Winged Dreams). Numerous cultural heritage enthusiasts aligned their voices with the French surrealists, Spanish ballads or romancero, traditional African praise poems, or the jazz- and blues-influenced writings published during the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement.

Particularly notable was the fact that members of an entire generation––during those late 1990s days as annual observations NPM expanded––took their poetic cues from slamfests, spoken word open mics, and the fluidity of Hip-Hop lyrics often composed in a heated flow of spontaneity. For a lot of such poets, that meant generally foregoing textbooks and, instead, memorizing recordings and recitals. At the time, I was a bookseller, and was as amazed as I was amused when dictionaries of rhymes began to outsell sonnets by Shakespeare or collected poems by Maya Angelou.      

Just as I took immense pleasure in participating in different forms of NPM during its earliest days, I experience a similar kind of joy upon joining the AuthorsDen community years later (just after completing Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance with Sandra L. West in 2003). The AD members with whom I connected were so faithful to their relationships with poetry and so generous when it came to mutual supportiveness that they often inspired both the poet and the essayist in me to write about them. These are a few examples:

• VISIONS OF THE POETS, Part 1: Andre Emmanuel Bendavi ben-YEHU
• Visions of the Poets, Part 2: The Hanging Man Dreams.
• Visions of the Poets, 3-A: Journey Through Universes Beyond the Visible

My background as a journalist and encyclopedist made writing the above somewhat automatic, but I became speechless when various members presented their assessments of my work in poetry or essays by them.

All of this brings me back, full circle if you will, to Marc Thomas’s Talking to the Machines and what the first section of the book says about humanity’s current uneasy relationship with generative artificial intelligence. The satisfaction which some take in being able to prompt generative AI to construct lines of text which mimic human composition is easily understood. Like current rapid-fire AI developments in general, it is innovative, exciting (even mesmerizing), and provides a kind of service useful for supporting different endeavors. Despite its documented threat to the relevance of human-generated works. That such poems impressively duplicate academic formulations well enough cannot be denied because, ironically enough, the formulaic nature of some poetry makes doing so, arguably, easy for digital programs.

The experience, nevertheless, of prompting software to produce a composition is very different from the experience of deeply contemplating a love affair, wrestling with the world’s injustices, appreciating the wonders of nature, or intentionally confronting painful truths, and transcribing those meditations into written or spoken verse. The soulful depths of the stories behind how certain poems emerge out of lived realities is a part of that mysterious essence which has defied scientific explanations for centuries and continues, even now, to confirm what it means to be an authentically creative artist.

None of this is meant to take anything away from AI’s ability to enhance productivity in a variety of professional situations—or for that matter to improve the quality of human life overall. In my own flesh-blood-and-spirit-generated human life, AI (along with human coaches) has helped me create objective literary criticisms, which I have edited for accuracy and clarity, to post in my AI Literary Chat Salon. I have also used it as a tool in the production, or editing, of some original concept art creations. And yes, the increased efficiency is appreciated.

What it cannot do for me is replace the psychic and spiritual infrastructures that give meaning to words like community, personal growth, and intimacy. What none of us should prompt AI to do, I would propose, is delete the connections and practices that go beyond providing meanings to endowing what we call existence itself with soul-infused value, and enriching it with an innate kind of poetry worth celebrating in small or big ways every day of the year. That includes this one.