POEM: THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
Ever wondered how the ancestors survived
the boat ride from Africa to America?
Smells of everybody's lives jumbled together
as they lay flanked side by side, in a cess pool
of blood, tears, and stool, dreaming the undreamable.
Deep in the bowels of a slave ship,
where many made their tomb,
a mother's tears flowed from dried-eyed ducts,
for the suckling babe snatched from her breast,
while hating the enemy whose seed now grew in her womb.
Rattlings of shackles never quite able
to drown out the re-memory of sun-drenched savannahs
where they once roamed as kings and queens
pulverized the spirit. . .
Were they bludgeoned into mindless stupor?
Or did they tell themselves,
"We must be strong; we must survive
for our future sons and daughters"?
For survive they did...only to endure the unwriteable...
bondage...false freedom...lynchings...now drugs...
Ever wondered what the ancestors would believe
if they knew of the perilous journey their future seed
must fork through the middle passage
from their mother's crack-filled womb?
Deep in the caverns of an incubator,
where many make their tomb,
a drug baby's life shackled to tubes, ventilators,
not guaranteed to save, like mother's milk, an umbilical cord,
but an alien world...Now, who's the slave?
Maxine E. Thompson, 1992
Email: maxtho@aol.com