Laments of a Slave
I lays in this bed of straw.
Hoping for the day the ground will thaw.
I needs to be getting up to stokes the fire so it don’t goes out.
I lays in this bed
Don’t wanna think.
Pulls the torn blanket over my head
Wanting the ground to open so in I sink.
Mastah be coming soon.
Hates it when he comes in here.
Fills the room with so much gloom
Don’t like it when he comes so near.
Done born Mastah six babies.
Done lost three men.
“Animals don’t love. He said.
It’s a God forbidden sin.”
“Make babies to sell
Tend to the fields
Then die, go to hell
And hand by your heels”.
“I own you.
Freedoms not yours”.
“I brought you to tend my crops
And mop my floors
And have my damn supper ready by noon.
You stupid coon”.
Just biding my time looking for those doors
I hears will be opening soon.
Many a night I crys
Tears always in my eyes
Since Mastah sold my man.
Eyes that would make you weep
Strong arms that rocked me to sleep,
as he whispered in my ear.
“Sleep woman, knowing that I loves ya…
even when I’m not here!”
His skin was Black and beautiful as the night.
Loved that man first time Mastah brought him into my sight.
Mastah be coming soon.
“Gawn away. I want to shout.
You nasty smelling goon.”
But I can’t.
Must wait.
Bottle my hate.
Gots to get up and tends the fire befores it goes out.
Don’t know my right age.
Ain’t that a shame?
Mama Moe says that what they calls me
Tain’t even my right name.
She told me the years says, I’m twenty and three
Am I too young to known such misery?
I remembers my mama.
Hair in black rings around her head.
I think I was nine years
When they shot her dead.
“Serves her right.
“Shouldn’t have tried to run.” Was all they said
That Mastah saw the hate in my eyes.
“Sell the girl
She’s no good to me now.
Sell her off
Don’t want her around.”
I had a new meaner Mastah the next day.
Took me straight to the shack,
stole my virginity away.
Biding my time waiting for those doors
I hears will be opening soon.
I hears him coming
I knows his walk
When he comes through that door
I will not talk
Will not say his name
To make him feel great
Must…bottle my hate
Just remove
His boots,
His pants
His shirt
All the while his hands be up my skirt.
Just biding my time…
After he done gone
I ran to Falama
Threw open her door.
Laid myself on her dirt floor.
"O, Sista of Beams, Mother of Light.
Help me grow wings so's I'd can take flight."
"Do you know what you ask, she said.
Once done cannot take back
Think about the things you’ll lack."
I don’t care I need to fly
I want to keep the child I have inside
And Mastah will surly sell it.
"Don’t you think I cried enuf?
Don’t you think I’ve stuffed enuf straw in my mouth
Evera time Mastah leaves my cabin to hush my pain?
Let me tell you a yumlaga (story) about a young man named Zita
Falama said
As she stroked my crying head
Now he was a spoiled one
Thirteen summers at the time of this yumlaga.
Pride of his motha and woe of his fatha
“You coddle him to much.” He say.
“He must become a man. He’ll be gone someday.”
His motha would just shake her head
Click her tongue
And listen to all he said
Zita was her only son.
Now Zita was in his own little world.
Fights with the other boys.
And taunted one little girl.
As they grew older, he taunted her more
His taunts were of love
But he didn’t know how to open that door
Lasata knew of this
Because from birth she was his
But her fatha promised another
No one else shall be her lover.
She came to me and she said one day.
“If I can’t be Zita’s
I want to fly away.”
Fix it my Sista of Beams, Motha of Light
Gives us wings, let us take flight.
She was told to listen close and listen well.
Do as I say or else you fail.
She was given instructions as to what she must do.
Out of my hut she flew.
Down to the forest for the feathers
Back to the skinning hut for the leather.
Up to the mountain for the flower.
"Hurry, hurry", She kept telling herself for nears the hour.
She told Zita to meet her under the old weeping tree.
From that point they will flee.
Just as the sun started to sleep, Zita came
To where Lasata had the fire glowing
Anticipation overflowing.
They look at each other
needing love and trust.
Hurry! Hurry! It’s almost dusk.
She said what she was told to say
Into the fire went her mystic findings
Packed in red clay
She felt a prickling, a tingling in her arms
A look at Zita quieted all her alarms.
She felt herself lifted as her body shifted
To fit what she was to become.
But, Zita just stood there looking o’ so dumb.
Then as she shifted for the last time.
She remembered a part of the magical rhyme
She forgot to say…
“From morning to night, dusk to dawn, send all bad thought away.
At the light of morning a new beginning
On four wings of love
Never carelessly spinning.”
Zita never married
The people in the village always wondered
Why but never questioned
Why he carried
This black bird
which showed the day
Lasata was no longer heard.
Now listen to me and listen well, she said
Unless all you do will fail.
I took it all into my ignorant head
I took it all in without dread.
Now, here I am free,
Not as free as I like to be
Waiting for the birth of my baby.
I did flee that night
But not on wings
Just listened to the
Black bird
Who sings
Of freedom
Of choice
And how my son will have a voice
Sometimes I wonders if the world will eva change.
I hopes so, I hope it’s all rearranged.
The doors have somewhat opened,
Those doors will neva be shut again.
I’m a hoping
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