Ethnic Memory
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The Field of Angels. The Field of Angels is a memorial dedicated to 2,200 Louisiana slave children who died in St. John the Baptist Parish at an average age of three years, documented in the Sacramental Records of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Their names are engraved on granite slabs along with pictures and quotations describing their everyday life. A black angel carrying a baby to Heaven is built in the middle of the field.
I feel your pain
smell the swelter that rises on a
Louisiana afternoon in a wooden slave shack
hear chains in the metal sweat box,
a human bake oven,
plantation camps
fueled by the intense heat of a day’s hatred
children working
shiny backs stinging with salt, blood and earth
under a sun that seemed to stay fixed
and not end the day as Miss Lillie fanned herself in evening shades.
Your back was aching
deformed by subservience
shoulders sloped like some fourth-class non-human
as you cut the cane that kept Miss Lillie.
This was wretchedness.
Nothing, not even Africa is as hot as the South
in summer with locusts whistling merciless highs
and the humidity of the Mississippi kissing your pores
153-years, not long
slavery’s undefinable sadness still exists
what would I have been?
field hand
breeder
cook
mistress
wet nurse
rebel
house servant
runaway who was hung or punished
Suppose I was born with a handicap or blind,
incapable of physical servitude
unfit for sale
Would they drown me as a child?
That may have been a blessing.
Copyright © Janis Medders Tobechi | Year Posted 2019
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