Low Country, South Carolina
the Low Country is where my Walkers first found purchase on this continent,
they were drawn to where the Salkehatchie and Little Salkehatchie Rivers
snaked through deep maritime woods of pine, live oak, magnolia, and palmetto,
they knew these forests hid rich farmland if somebody
would clear the fields, plant them, cultivate them, harvest them,
too often my ancestors chose to increase their productivity
by enslaving those of color to work transformation upon the land,
to fell and clear the trees,
to uproot the stumps,
to enslave the community within the soil to produce what would sell,
only the domesticated allowed to flourish,
natural diversity sacrificed so that only the favored species thrived,
and they would benefit only those of the favored skin color,
the plow and the hoe the tools
to break the spirit of the land into obeying our wants:
rice, indigo, cotton, peanuts, watermelons,
decades ago I visited a farm where my grandfather was born,
there a finger from the coast reached into the fields
and I heard of the occasional alligator who visited
the summer crop of watermelons there,
I reach to empathize with those relatives who did what they could
to make a living out of this Low Country,
I imagine them as warm, loving, good people
who worked hard to serve their family and their God,
and yet they also went along with the tragic barter
of creating a good life for one’s own family
largely by being a part of slavery, a pact with the Devil,
while I imagine all of their consciousness
considered they were on the side of the angels.
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