Poetry
"The History is Still Being Written"
By Retta Lewis
By Retta Lewis
Analyze it, if you will,
But do not bury me beneath its chains;
And when we celebrate,
Must we be compared to you?
Our history--
When the truth is said of it--
Was more than death to us.
We had our victories, too.
The terrain was fraught with peril,
And there were walls to navigate;
A thousand miles of thought,
And the remains of a battered landscape.
More than a few centuries out,
And the history is still being written.
How do we tell it, and when?
Who can tell it, and why?
We’ve had our share of debates,
But it is the names they call us by--
To say nothing of the language barrier--
That we must rectify.
It is only now that we can speak
Of what we did not know--
The roads erased,
The paths destroyed,
The maps burned,
The edicts carved in stone,
The laws ratified.
It was not the standard fairytale
That the books would have you believe;
Nor was it quite the end of times,
For we have had our moments.
All neatly framed and carefully
Discussed, discarded,
And expounded upon.
More than a few centuries out
And discussions are not all that far removed
From the onset of events--
Four hundred years of uninterrupted crossings.
Will any of it signify?
We weave a fate out of uneven destinies--
And out of a conspiracy of silence, a new people.
But do not bury me beneath its chains;
And when we celebrate,
Must we be compared to you?
Our history--
When the truth is said of it--
Was more than death to us.
We had our victories, too.
The terrain was fraught with peril,
And there were walls to navigate;
A thousand miles of thought,
And the remains of a battered landscape.
More than a few centuries out,
And the history is still being written.
How do we tell it, and when?
Who can tell it, and why?
We’ve had our share of debates,
But it is the names they call us by--
To say nothing of the language barrier--
That we must rectify.
It is only now that we can speak
Of what we did not know--
The roads erased,
The paths destroyed,
The maps burned,
The edicts carved in stone,
The laws ratified.
It was not the standard fairytale
That the books would have you believe;
Nor was it quite the end of times,
For we have had our moments.
All neatly framed and carefully
Discussed, discarded,
And expounded upon.
More than a few centuries out
And discussions are not all that far removed
From the onset of events--
Four hundred years of uninterrupted crossings.
Will any of it signify?
We weave a fate out of uneven destinies--
And out of a conspiracy of silence, a new people.
