Year of Release
Nearing four hundred years
of living in captivity
Solar eclipse aspirations
has been my people’s enduring
ebony destiny
Almost four hundred years
of divided slavery:
chains seen and chains invisible
Hellish experience of double trouble
Self-congratulatory proclamations
of emancipated release
were accompanied by chains slapped on the brain,
having a tighter squeeze
We were taught
when our alabaster masters
raised the white flag,
we were to bend the knee
Surrender our wounded pride,
and serve the coin of the realm
Give the faces of authority
full submissive servitude,
hold not back labor of the sweat due
We were commanded to give total flag loyalty;
hand over heart obedience
to the strange god who conquered us,
and put our bodies in a cotton coffin field to grieve
We learned to love the sound
of the drag of the chains
It gave sonorous rise
to the voice of our slave dreams
After nearly four hundred years,
we still sing:
Lord, help us endure
the skin sting
and the humiliation pain
of our idol suffering
Let our parched lips
drink long of Exodus liberty
when the Son reign
In the year of release,
let the land be filled
with the sound of jubilee
Nearing the end of
four long generations of undying faith
We believe our bulrush tears
are gonna be Messiah-soothed wiped away
When we no longer hear
Massa shout “Boy” blues,
with his little bald eagle horn blowing
Scarlett O’Hara sour slavery notes
forever gone with the wind
And when we see the white flag lowering,
we shall rise
joyously at captivity’s end
Copyright © Freddie Robinson Jr. | Year Posted 2018
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