On a Freedom Ride

This serves as a poetic journey of time travel, eclipsing Jim Crow and the antebellum years of slavery in America, utilizing a twist on the term "freedom ride" from the 1960's Civil Rights Movement.

 

I want to invite you

To come along with me

On a freedom ride

Down beyond the banks of the river

We can see where the willows weep

And still tell the stories of men and boys

Hanging like strange fruit from their limbs

And dangling in lifelessness in our past.

 

Walk with me through field that once birthed cotton

And hear the distant voices within the howling of the wind.

It is almost as if you can hear their voices,

Heavy with their burdens in a chorus of sorrow songs.

Listen to the wind,

For it tells the truth and no lies.

 

Let's keep moving on along the beaten path

Over hills and through creeks

That still hold the footprints of barefoot runaways,

Dodging the slave-catchers and trackers

Who sought a price for their heads.

Follow the currents of the running waters

That feed into the river over yonder

And carried many across to Freedom Land

With nothing but hope running through their veins.

 

See the plot of soil

With its desolate surface and dry clumps of earth

That still overflows with the blood of those who paid the price.

Their blood soaked this soil and nothing grows from it.

Their blood dripped from the bite of the lash.

Their blood dripped from the open wounds left as a reminder to others.

Their blood dripped upon the earth

And reminds us today of the loss of life that now allows for life

To be lived in freedom by us.

 

What if none had prayed

Or sang their sorrow songs?

Would we not appreciate freedom?

What no blood had been shed

Or no limbs had been lost?

Would we not have gained freedom?

What if none had resisted?

What if none had ran or fled?

Would we not have seen and tasted freedom?

What if God had not heard these people?

What if God had not heard their outpouring of cries?

I think we would have never known freedom.

Reviews

[Eternal Thought]

Give Thanks-Keep them coming bro.