#41
Color: Brick Red
August 9, 2001
Song: "Change is Gonna Come" Sam Cooke
From That August Day On
For the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities…and home.
Tides risin’ high
on Heaven.
Freedom’s Hands
bound and bleeding.
Salt water,
sting and clean,
burying the free
in August, 1619
I don’t remember the day I came on purpose.
That’s for my soul.
I don’t remember the pain on purpose.
That’s for my children.
But blood has memory.
It remembers
when it spilled
when it poured
when it flowed like rivers in my children
who don’t remember me.
Remember me.
Remember the day I ran in a summer soft day
a free and cool night when joy was every moment
and the wind sang my name.
Remember me when I walked to school
miles my feet would travel for miles to the place I belonged.
Remember me
when I rode in the back…
broke my back…
carried you on my back…
kissed you and told you I’d be right back.
Remember me
not the stories
the lies
the myths
but remember me true in your history.
Your blood has memory
and it is of me
and so you know me
you just have to see.
Tobacco fields and the James
High hills of southwest and into Shenandoah’s valley.
The Confederate Capital just down below the little mountain in Charlottesville.
We came in when the tides were high
and the waters stirred with trouble
and yet did not stop.
It didn’t know any better.
Time tip-toed by the bay,
waiting for freedom up the way a bit.
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