Retribution

Its been a long time since I published anything on my blog. But I am glad I am back & I am going to do my best to be regular at this. I had been inspired to write this poem about 6 years ago after seeing a movie called 'Rosewood'. This is a true story based on a nearly forgotten incident which took place in January 1923, in the small Florida Town of Rosewood where a prosperous African-American Community lived a peaceful but tolerable existence with the Whites. That existing peace was shattered when a white woman, Fannie Taylor falsely and out of fear of her husbands wrath (she had had an affair with a white Man who had beaten her) says that a black Man had assaulted her. With that lie, began a week of lynchings, beatings, burnings and destruction of properties. The Town of Rosewood was totally destroyed. With men, women and children taking refuge in the swamp hiding from the lynch mobs, only a few brave people, both Black and White stood firm against the onslaught of the mob and rescued the women and children. The poem is dark, but if you are a firm believer in eventual justice, you will like the play of words...........

Black bodies hanging from trees
Swaying in the winds of hate.
Hooded horsemen, the white man,
Galloping into the dark of night.
The moon in shame hides
Colored children in fields lie
Their homes in pieces shredded
And parents hacked in deep memories
Men are chasing away their own kind
Chasing a shade, their dark shadow.
Why did you kill your brother, O White man?
Why do you still hate him so?
Can’t you hear his innocent blood?
Scream for reconciliation to the heavens above.
Return, ‘O’ White man, Return to me,
Says the ground, swept by sands of time.
Your evil dreams have perished with you
For white bodies are hanging from trees
Swaying in the winds of justice
And hooded avengers, the black angels
Gallop away in the sweet light of day.