DEEP NORTH

__________

 

Headed for the "promised land" in droves

Attracted to bright urban lights

Like a swarm of sepia-toned moths,

They arrive

In search of work,

Safer homes,

Altars to pray to,

In search of the peace that

Living in the so-called

"Bible Belt" did not give them.

 

What kind of god

Would allow his own children to

Endure the jail cell,

The slurs

Out of the mouths of babes & rednekkks,

The noose that broke the neck

From a tree

Strung-up

For the crime of

Being born Black,

The white hoods that made their Heaven

By making innocent lives Hell?

What kind of god

Would abandon its own children

To the mercy of hate?

To doors being shut to them

Because they are descendants of the enslaved?

 

They arrive

With a different kind of home in their hearts.

Amongst the dark mass, a young

Tsalagi* woman, her Black carpenter

Husband & their 2 daughters [ one a half-breed ]

Leave Virginia in the dust

Headed for the "promised land"

 

In the shadow of the Great Depression.

 

The Deep North welcomes all.

_________________________

W: 3.20.07

 

*What the Cherokee Nation call themselves. Pronounced: "Chah-lah-gee."

 

[ From the book Crimson Stain, EYEPUBLISHEWE, 2024. ]

 

[ Pic is the painting The Migration Series, Panel 1 by Jacob Lawrence - 1941. ]