Mobee Family Slave Relics House

It is one thing to stand in 1996 and speak of things
Hundreds of years passed
It is another to hold
The weight of history in your hands
Taste the rust of dried blood and bloody tears
Touch shackles that once restrained a child from play
Held captive, trembling and afraid
Yet know that you could not have borne such a burden
And understand you exist only because someone did
Carry the weight
I have looked into the eyes of those
Whose ancestors sold mine away
I have walked the streets leading to the bay
Where dance the ghost of ships once docked
Caught echoes of the trembles from
Canons fired late into night
To frighten men into submission.
Now here I stand
A child returned
A legacy fulfilled
To write my name and the name of all my kin
In the book of remembrance
I shed these tears to water the soil
That has had to be content too long
Without my embrace
I curl my toes in the sand to capture a lost footprint
To remember how they must have stumbled under the
Burden of man's desires
I turn my face west
Let it be understood
One has returned to prepare herself for the future
Wind and sun and ocean waves persist
Against the cruelest thoughts of man
They rise and soar and ebb again
There in that glint of sun abreast the waves white crest
It is one thing to stand in 1996 and speak of things
Hundreds of years passed
It is another to hold
The weight of history in your hands
Taste the rust of dried blood and bloody tears
Touch shackles that once restrained a child from play
Held captive, trembling and afraid

©1996