We marvelled at the words
in history books— what galleon
meant; or caravelle, or jump
ship. Leg shackles, auction,
Middle Passage. Languish or mourn.
Where to find the will to believe
the ancestors have not abandoned us?
How impossible it seemed that often,
only language kept us from completely
disappearing: prayers invoked under
the breath, a ragged thread of song
improbably echoed from across another
field. Communing with the soil's iron dark,
we know incipient life burrows even in
blindness. We make talismans from air
and water, stalks of wheat; from moths
and scarab beetles. Come night owl and omen
bird, crawlers changing color. Water flows
patiently to make its way through rock.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
