No Strange Fruit After Strange Fruit
After Strange Fruit
Old Mrs. Betty Brown sat me down today,
Made me listen to an old singer
named Billie Holiday. As we listened, I observed
the tears swelling in her eyes. “Black bodies swinging
in the southern breeze” she looked away at nothing
“My Daddy was one of them on that poplar tree.”
She added with a bitter tongue and the weight
of the world, “Not a betta’ man deserved it none.”
She closed her eyes and rocked slowly to the beat
She must have travelled back in time. Back to the pain
The memories she tried to hide
away. “I’ll never forget the smell of fresh magnolia
and his burning flesh.”
We listened to it over a dozen times, until every word
Had been felt like a knife
against bone, till it galvanized my soul
till the essence of that day was mine to hold
too. I could see their twisted mouths and bulging eyes
I could see every detail. Every strange fruit hanging.
Some Hanging high, some hanging low, some never even ripened,
And some plucked by the crows,
I agree it was a strange and bitter crop that grows.
Old Mrs. Betty Brown sat me down today,
“Come, see the scars on my back, or the ones in my heart, then tell me
things have changed. I’ve seen this hate before, aint
nothin’ changed.”
She swayed gently in her chair and didn’t speak again,
But her silence
was the loudest sound never said
in my head.
Copyright © Elizabeth Duran | Year Posted 2019
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