What An Absolute Honour...
.... a blessing of the greatest degree. To perform on the Queen Elizabeth Hall stage with Baaba Maal. To have him compose music to your poetry, to sing on the same stage and have him say in his alert, bright voice, "Yes you. Very good, you are very good. You have much sincerity"... I am still reeling. Speechless. In the light of that performance, I shall be recording with Baaba, Lemn Sissay, Inua Ellams and TJ Dema this Sunday 29th July 2010 recreating the whole QEH event at a private studio session with friends. It couldn't get any better(...or maybe it could!)
OK groupie attack over (just about), the reality is that I have been listening to Baaba's music and following his story of Blood Line Royalty to Musical Royalty since the early 90's and I would never have thought that Poetry could bring me to this place.
Lemn Sissay invited myself and many other prestigious international poets as part of the Olympic Poetry Parnasuss to write to the theme of the journey of the African diaspora. Word Sound Power was the title of the event and I opted to write a poem based on the legacy of Harriett Tubman - inspired by her will, fuelled by my awe at the kind of emotions someone running from brutal subjugation and the likelihood of death of themselves and any family members with them might feel. Also with 27,000,000 people enmeshed in some sort of slavery in 2012, eg. indentured slavery, human traffiking and child labour, I wanted to capture the desperation, the pure instinct of survival and the driven hope for freedom in this piece, 'North Side Of The Trees'.
NORTH SIDE OF THE TREES
Written by Zena Edwards©
Once upon a time
A very real time, a time incomprehensible to now
A time when 3/5ths totalled less than human
When men were workhorses and women for stock-breeding
A time when the Word of a black book
Was beaten Into layers of black skin: it was a black sin!
To a time when trading in flesh was gravaliscious*
And humanity, bereft, was left wanting
People of a melanated skin would be running
Running north to a haven
Built with smouldering bricks of freedom
On the toes of their feet
They fled
From the south to the north
They fled
Blood beating in their chests,
They fled
Fear stoking their breath
They fled
And if the night was not merciful and the clouds hid the moon
If the stars turned their faces, if the night was still born
Those runners, those Freedom Seekers
Would feel the lash of the trees saps
As they ran their feet crack twig: snap!
They'd reach out their hands into the black
Of “I will. I must. I can.”
They’d feel For the mercy of the trees
Where the moss grew
On the north side
The north side of the trees
To the North, to the North
To the Freedom of Days
They’d reach out to
The north side of the trees.
History played a nefarious game
Chattel slavery was cheat
Harriet Tubman did greet Mother Nature’s brief; blatant and discreet.
"Look up for Polaris's* crown
If diabolic mists persist
Then reach out, bite your fear
Bear forward till your eyes tear
Reach out for the north side of the trees.
Remember the DNA of freedom
Feel the pores of your skin breathe
Feel the bark's velvet coat,
drink the nestled dew
Rescue your parched, hungry throat
Extend blind hands, grasp the unknown tune
Of Spirituals made from the moss that grew
On the north side
To the North, to the North
To the Freedom of Days
Just reach out to
The north side of the trees.
The hem of Black Moses'* dress was enflamed with resolve
Once Slave bought, sold
"She is Voodoo Queen enraged with an evil eye, mystic powers untold
She is myth, phantom, duppy, an Ancient of Old!"
They spoke in low whispers of the Underground Railroad.
But She freed minds and bodies obeyed Ashe!
The Grace of Our Mother
For the mercy of the forests double-edged embrace, Ashe!
5 centuries on and to what do we cling
When to suffer is to know the drought of compassion
When 27,000,000 still feel slavery's sting
Profit over people - "Let Freedom Ring"
Drink the sweet water from the Drinking Gourd
Of the North Star within.
Hope is the soft moss that grows thick, beyond sight
The heart has eyes to capture the night
Her example is intact: Harriet! Agent of Hope, reached into black
"I will. I must. I can"
Free your mind and the body will obey
The Grace of Our Mother, Mother Earth, Ashe!
Feel for the north side of the trees
Where the moss grows
On the north side
To the North, to the North
To the freedom of days
Reach out for the north side of the trees.
“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in heaven.”
- Harriet Tubman
Notes: gravaliscious - greedy Polaris – The North Star Drinking Gourd is a constellation of stars located pointed to the North Star Black Moses' – A name of honour given to Harriet Tubman
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