What Nat Turner Learned That Day Working His Master’s Fields - Alysia Harris
(Some say Nat Turner received a sign from the Lord to commence the rebellion. And receive a sign, he did. Some say it was a solar eclipse. They are mistaken. It was nothing as grandiose or profound. Nothing that would attract the eye. The sign was something small, probably as small as an ant.)
Black People real familiar with the dirt.
Our ancestors worked it, gave birth in it and were buried in it.
Somehow this soil always brought us to our knees.
But it wasn’t all scrape and skin and scream.
We found anthills here.
And queens.
And the rage of a billion black bodies buried somewhere inside.
And the might of a billion black bodies moving boulders 200 times their size.
Soldiers not slaves.
To lay a railroad in the dark wasn’t nothing hard.
Their goal was Underground Empire.
Singing their work songs in silence,
a billion strongmen ,
bragging as they hammer,
I am the master.
I know the soil.
The ground you stand on isn’t safe beneath your feet.
Neither where your children play nor where you sleep.
So let the ants remind you, least you ever think
you the only one that can build colonies.
