Dark-skinned men huddle together

Shoulder to shoulder,

Small smoke signals intermittently

Tapping holes in thin air,

Their blue-black shadows lifting

high over the stretch of valley

ridgeline compromised by thick-necked slavers &

the sanctity of God hanging like dew drops

ready to seize innocence in a shower of whitewash.

The squawk of black crows announced what they all knew

Deep in their holey brogans,

that the sun would slant westward over the mountains

and the sixteenth crucified savior

would assume his rightful place over the dominion

of fools and the land would cease being land,

but a burial pyre, the ashes of Nat Turner smoldering the cold morning air.

He was right!  A Black man’s hand did reach over the sun,

And them people would be who they always had been,

Flayers of their Father’s skin,

Dancers by the midnight torch,

Howling at the moon.