After Maya Angelou’s “A Georgia Song”

 

We inhale the briny air of the Atlantic Coast

Crab legs broiled to surrender

Gentle midnight intricacies of

Constellations in the vast beyond

Scent of conflagrant embers.

In mapled forests,

The far off symphony of

Explosions, fireworks and gunshots

With the distilled echoes of

Mo(u)rning hymns,

Shuffles, cries and

Mahogany canoes wearily parting

The swamplands of Virginia.

            

Recount to me your stories, Roanoke.    

 

Frost creeps up Dare’s cabin walls and blunt

Knives carve their inevitable

Tragedy.

 

Forget not our tales, Jamestown.

Oh, the pristine white cotton

Dampened only by ancestors’

Blood, and Hannah

Scribing her memoirs to

Abingdon.

We pine, hazily for autumn sunsets

And an auburn sun,

And the hum of gentle fireflies.

 

Cry me a river, Elizabeth.

 

We need a flood to arise

Striking, as the power of truth

Uncovered can change one’s destiny.

And lacking  distinct

Humanity, no eyes extending

Comfort, nor hand

Outstretched, disjointed from

A black corpse.

 

Find us nascent hope, Chesapeake.

 

A radiant drowning sun, a

Harvest dusk, slow pulse,

Languid, induced only

By a reflex, we crave                            

Serenity.

 

O Richmond, O wealthy, and

tortured land,

 

Croon to us a virgin melody

Of Coastal serenity.