From my book, Echoes and Whispers: The Chronicles of an African American Family in the South

FINDING FAMILY


Part I

 
What Slaves Have Trod


What Slaves have trod

The dusty trail

Or slipped a mossy veil

Across a silent, silty, stream

Beneath a whispering canopy

Traveling through time and space

To be Free?



What Slaves have trod

The steep and craggy hills

Or traced through grassy plains

Dark, brown, and jagged lines

The raised road map on his back

Escaping cat’s old lethal crack?



Though time advances

The years begin and end

The quest for my and kindred’s mind

Must be to seek and ask, and ask;

What Slaves have trod

This dusty trail

To Freedom’s Holy Grail?

© 2004