Igbo Landing Where Chains Broke and Spirit Soared
(A Poem Inspired by Igbo Landing)
In the hush of Georgia's morning mist,
Where the reeds whisper secrets the ocean kissed,
A tale still stirs beneath the tide,
Of broken chains and ancient pride.
They came in silence, shackled souls,
From lands where the Baobab consoles,
From the red earth of Igbo land,
Bound by force, not by command.
The slave ship creaked with stolen breath,
Its hull a tomb of living death.
Eyes like storms, yet voices still,
Carried across the ocean’s will.
Through markets loud with foreign tongue,
Their names erased, their stories wrung.
Sold like beasts to soil unknown,
But spirit rooted deep in bone.
To Georgia’s shores they met the day,
Forced to march the master’s way.
But on that creek, near Dunbar's bend,
They found their line, they drew their end.
The whispers came in Igbo speech,
A truth that shackles could not reach.
“The water brought us, it shall take
Us home beneath the silver lake.”
They rose not with sword, nor with fire,
But with defiance that would not tire.
One turned, then all, hand clasped in hand,
They faced the waves, they made their stand.
Into the depths, they chose to go,
Where no whip cracks, where no tears flow.
No master’s name to stain the tongue,
No life in bondage to be wrung.
They walked as gods, not broken men,
Refused the yoke, returned again
To ancestors who waited still
Beyond the sea, beyond the hill.
And now the wind, it hums their song,
The creeks remember what was wrong.
The water holds their solemn vow:
"We bent then but never now."
Their tale was buried, whispered low,
But spirits rise where rivers flow.
At Igbo Landing, silence breaks
Each ripple knows the stand they made.
So let this be their legacy:
A story not of slavery
But of a people, proud and free,
Who claimed their final destiny.
For the Igbos who chose the water,
May your courage flow forever.
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