The Marsh Of Our Shame

Their monosyllabic cantor fell to a soft and lazy hush.

 The sun eclipsed the vast marshes horizon

as they sang, come now oh come lie with us.

Fronds of Saw palmetto now rustled,

reeds of change swayed with the wind.

as the tides of lost souls began to roll quietly in.

Come they said, come now and see,

look upon our vanquished spirits

to pithy thyself to grief. 

For we are the souls of a thousand men cast…

the byproducts of an old rich mans shame

And we are built upon the layers of centuries past.

We came from afar; we came from a land across the sea.

And we were bound by the chains of corruption

longing only to once again in our hearts to be free.

We toiled away our years planting indigo and rice,

we married and had children only to see them

bound by these same chains of this captured life.

Ah, but gone now are the plantations,

gone now are the taskmasters profane.

yet to see now upon this savannah wide,

there is nothing but our memory left to claim.

So hush now and listen close,

as we from beneath the silt time

end our song from below the savannah’s of our mind.

J. Allen Wilson © four 2006