Poetry
"Igbo Landing"
By Akua Lezli Hope
By Akua Lezli Hope
We are incomprehensible
to you who feel only fear
when you hear us, spider
silk on face, chill up back,
which is a success perhaps
to have both sugar and fat,
to die of excess and sloth,
not like we hungry wraiths
whose forgotten flesh was sinew,
whose nonexistent options were
to live death or die living,
whose path was clear:
undo or be undone.
Our drowned captors are silent;
their injustice muzzles them
We sang the song of home-going,
a freedom bound journey as we
down-drowned with determination,
deliberation, avowals to never surrender,
to die and return from whence we
came, from where we were stolen,
to resist and not submit, calling to
our God, Chukwu, for escort, for conveyance,
for admission to the next phase,
existence beyond this abominable land
out of reach of horrible hands:
Those who would eat our souls, bite
bit after bit, daily flay flesh
from our backs, lynch us,
take our babies, steal their milk,
rape our young ones, remove our tongues,
and in that terrible future in which you tremble
by our whispers, lingering laments,
you would believe such theft was chosen?
And that is what frightens you.
We refused to languish in longing;
you hear our reverberating answers echo
through the water, slow lapping sounds,
waves creeping on the land, our avowals.
We consecrated our commitment,
how we said no with our lives,
for our lives, how we refused
that hell on land, making generations
of grist for the hideous mill of rogue
capital, the codified caprice of robbers
we brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, clear-willed
strong-souled, liberty-led, freedom-fed,
returned to mother water, singing a way
open.
Out of 75, only 13 were found
drowned, the rest of us lifted,
transmuted, flew.
Author's Note: Igbo Landing is a historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island in Glynn County, Georgia, where, in 1803, 75 Igbo captives, after drowning their captors and running the ship York aground, marched ashore, singing, and walked into Dunbar creek, committing mass suicide. 13 bodies were recovered. The rest remain missing. In 2002, the site was declared a holy ground.
to you who feel only fear
when you hear us, spider
silk on face, chill up back,
which is a success perhaps
to have both sugar and fat,
to die of excess and sloth,
not like we hungry wraiths
whose forgotten flesh was sinew,
whose nonexistent options were
to live death or die living,
whose path was clear:
undo or be undone.
Our drowned captors are silent;
their injustice muzzles them
We sang the song of home-going,
a freedom bound journey as we
down-drowned with determination,
deliberation, avowals to never surrender,
to die and return from whence we
came, from where we were stolen,
to resist and not submit, calling to
our God, Chukwu, for escort, for conveyance,
for admission to the next phase,
existence beyond this abominable land
out of reach of horrible hands:
Those who would eat our souls, bite
bit after bit, daily flay flesh
from our backs, lynch us,
take our babies, steal their milk,
rape our young ones, remove our tongues,
and in that terrible future in which you tremble
by our whispers, lingering laments,
you would believe such theft was chosen?
And that is what frightens you.
We refused to languish in longing;
you hear our reverberating answers echo
through the water, slow lapping sounds,
waves creeping on the land, our avowals.
We consecrated our commitment,
how we said no with our lives,
for our lives, how we refused
that hell on land, making generations
of grist for the hideous mill of rogue
capital, the codified caprice of robbers
we brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, clear-willed
strong-souled, liberty-led, freedom-fed,
returned to mother water, singing a way
open.
Out of 75, only 13 were found
drowned, the rest of us lifted,
transmuted, flew.
Author's Note: Igbo Landing is a historic site at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island in Glynn County, Georgia, where, in 1803, 75 Igbo captives, after drowning their captors and running the ship York aground, marched ashore, singing, and walked into Dunbar creek, committing mass suicide. 13 bodies were recovered. The rest remain missing. In 2002, the site was declared a holy ground.
