Dimensions

If I be the future, where do I leave the past? All that these old eyes have seen and weathered ears have screamed; A mind that has gathered its rage. A heart that has harbored its hate; The white man with a black belt that never kept anything up, serving only to keep me down. Of words and hands, too harshly felt; The shadows of feet-- from oak trees, still swinging. The fear of sheets that silently shift on soundless Mississippi nights; How do I sleep on cotton and not feel the sting of its sweat? Will you now give me a silken box to bury all along with me? Will I suffocate under its weight forever? While you shovel light onto darkness, looking for absolution-- in the blending. Will you auction off my memories, like tiny babies so they can grow up without any; How can I be the mother of the future, when I am already a daughter of the past? And how will my sons come to forgive, when their mother can never ever-- let them forget…