04-08-2017, 01:53 PM
Henrietta
The end’s like knotting off a cotton thread;
a length is finished, still the spool remains.
I live on through my children, though I’m dead.
My daughters have my lips, I smile again.
Through each maternal ancestor a chain,
our line unbroken since the first live birth.
Our DNA, as memory, prevails.
I never thought to travel round this earth.
From Africa, where life began, we spread
as servants, slaves, our treatment inhumane
with hunger, floggings, hanging overhead.
White masters took their pleasure in our pain
and bred our daughters.Kings of their domain
they knew exactly what our lives were worth.
They farmed us, sold our children. Some were slain.
I never thought to travel round this earth.
Then slaves were freed, to own their own farmsteads
and generations worked without complaint
to own a patch of land, put up a shed
and grow a crop to sell, somehow maintain
a full-time job as well. Our pride shines plain
in children reading, learning, giving birth.
The Good Book teaches ‘Give, and you shall gain.’
I never thought to travel round this earth.
My cancer didn’t die with me. Mundane
as my life’s been, I somehow earned rebirth,
my stolen cells immortal now, arcane.
I never thought to travel round this earth.
The end’s like knotting off a cotton thread;
a length is finished, still the spool remains.
I live on through my children, though I’m dead.
My daughters have my lips, I smile again.
Through each maternal ancestor a chain,
our line unbroken since the first live birth.
Our DNA, as memory, prevails.
I never thought to travel round this earth.
From Africa, where life began, we spread
as servants, slaves, our treatment inhumane
with hunger, floggings, hanging overhead.
White masters took their pleasure in our pain
and bred our daughters.Kings of their domain
they knew exactly what our lives were worth.
They farmed us, sold our children. Some were slain.
I never thought to travel round this earth.
Then slaves were freed, to own their own farmsteads
and generations worked without complaint
to own a patch of land, put up a shed
and grow a crop to sell, somehow maintain
a full-time job as well. Our pride shines plain
in children reading, learning, giving birth.
The Good Book teaches ‘Give, and you shall gain.’
I never thought to travel round this earth.
My cancer didn’t die with me. Mundane
as my life’s been, I somehow earned rebirth,
my stolen cells immortal now, arcane.
I never thought to travel round this earth.