ARTFUL FACTS: Memory is persistent

  "Cash Crop" (partial exhibit) by Stephen L. Hayes Jr.

Unforgettable
© 2010 KalinagoWoryi

The feet of my Ancestors beat
down
on the
ground
like a
drum
heavy-laden
with burdens
too big for White men’s hands
So they forced my People to toil
in soil and sun
too hard and hot for their liking
Feet that speak
beat a pain of stories
so long and far away from Home
No longer heard by our Motherland
forgotten, it would seem,
were brothers, sisters
mothers, fathers
wives and husbands
Children of the Soil -
all hands to the plough
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
Feet beat down on the ground
like a drum
heavy-laden
with burdens
too big for White men’s hands.
Children trailing blood-soaked dirt
bare-footed and clothed in cotton sacks -
dragged along,
too heavy for their backs
beaten blacker and blue-red
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
Feet beat down on the ground
echoing throughout time
still heard by those who would listen
Never Forgotten
Why do you ask me to forget?
Forgive you I must
but your crime? – Never Forgotten
like all who fell in 9:11
all who were gassed in the Holocaust
and every Native American
waiting for reparations on Reservations
Like those who perished in Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima
in Katrina and the Tsunami…in Haiti
Never Forgotten!
Do not ask me to forget!



Ephesians 4:31-32: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.