#diaspora #writing #mywork
DIASPORA
Inherited Lands and People

I'm alone but I walk with a multitude of relatives.
There’s a light streak in my hair.
I’ve inherited the trait from my French grandfather.

It was passed down to all his children, and to me,
from my mother. I also walk with her feet.
But not in her footsteps.

From old photographs and records I see that
I’m a combinations of many family lines and races.
French, English, Irish, Hebrew and an ancient
Scottish line that goes back centuries.
Even Scythian warriors who roamed the
Mediterranean Sea and conquered lands.
In dreams I’m aiming and shooting arrows.

Before the American Revolution in 1765,
during the African Slave Trade era in America,
a North Carolina plantation slave owner fathered
a boy child with a slave woman.
That boy child and his mother are also my relatives.

My skin is lily white, my eyes are green,
but I have inherited some African ways from long ago.
There’s an African way of ‘sharing’ within me.
I love and feel music that Africans have created.

I can endure hard, physical and mental labor,
and being treated badly.
I can endure difficult circumstances in life.
Even so, gentlemen open doors for me as if I were a queen.

My spirit and I are not crushed.
When I come to you, I don’t arrive alone.
I bring all my relatives and their lands with me.
You bring all of your inherited lands and people with you.
We’re a crowd!! How wonderful!
Let’s smile, kiss and hug, and dance.