Memoir of An African-American Man, Mother
Mother
—Statue of Ebony Black—
A woman who cried for freedom,
not for herself but on behalf of her children
whose lives are compelled to lie and rise in the cradle
placed under evil stars, was the woman who was put into
compulsory labor under scorching sun throws sweltering heat from above.
The woman who was tossing herself on the bed at night
oppressed by night after night’s hideous dream
was the woman who lost her husband
under the strokes of merciless lashes.
When her son was sold to a slave trader for filthy lucre,
he was shackled and headed to unknown destinations with heavy dragging feet.
When he turned his frightened face back to have his last look at his beloved mother, the gunstock struck him and a whip cracked in the air.
The mother’s soul wailed without a sound. In her eyes, not of the anger
nor of the relinquishment but too cruel to say that it is her destiny, bitter
tears welled up and fell onto spell filled wilderness.
The woman who never had enjoyed
praise on her cute trickery at her childhood,
never given an opportunity to bloom as a beautiful flower
that bashfully stands in the corner of a fence in her susceptible adolescent age,
taken her passion of tender caring motherly love for the children away,
not even allowed to possess a least dignity as to exist as a human being,
goes after the trail that the son had left in her barefoot, holding an everlasting rancor in her heart, the ill sentiment that will never be lapsed.
At the end, her spirit, such a sorrowful woman’s spirit,
broke the chain of bondage that bits into the flesh
like canine-teeth and locked like a jaw of the fierce beast
for long and tiring years.
She cries out with a painful heart-rending cry,
by the shore where the water surges high,
where the sun rises every morning to tell us
that there is always a new day if we believe in it.
“Send my lost husband back to his beloved wife!
return my taken-away son to his lonely mother!
let’s approve a little space
that enables us to live as a one happy family.”
The statue of Ebony Black,
the woman who was forced to live her entire life in misery,
now stretches her arms with broken chains hanging from her wrists,
looking in air half knelt and crying
“Let me free from this misery,”
in past, though unpleasant,
and therefore, no one ever wants to look back
or recall, yet lives in thoughtful ones’ heart with remorse.
Copyright © Su Ben | Year Posted 2016
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