“The Slave Trail of Tears is the great missing migration—a thousand-mile-long river of people, all of them black, reaching from Virginia to Louisiana. During the 50 years before the Civil War, about a million enslaved people [were forced]from the Upper South—Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky—to the Deep South—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama.” —Edward Ball (Smithsonian)
Mr. big stripey britches
wore a white hat
and coat the color of
those mushrooms you
never eat and he ruled the
show, loud talking and
sitting way up high
on a beautiful horse
prancing back and forth
as he held a gun
like a baby he sometimes
put down to take an onion
out of the mushroom coat
and grab a quick bite
and what came after was
two by two by two by two
of men glued together
with a long silver chain
followed by women
with rope tied round
their scabbed wrists
and I heard the sound
of hundreds singing,
a short man with a banjo
hopping around playing
the same old tune
and when he was done
he’d just start it again,
bobbing his fat neck
while his skinny friend
threw his little pale
arms out and out
wider and wider
so the voices wouldn’t
stop and the dusty feet
would stay in step with
the other dusty feet
“As I went up the new-cut road/
I spied a possum and a toad”
you never seen so
many bodies filing by
too many to bother
counting, an army of
stinking, sweating bug-bit
open-sored Bible legs
marching over the land
followed by a parade of
wagons stuffed up with
old folks and maybe sick
folks because there was
some groaning and there
was kids walking too,
a boy about my age who
stared at me as I stared
back for as long as we
could stare we did but
there was nothing either
of us was saying except
to know the other knew
and there was men with
whips and a lot of yelling
about ‘don’t drag behind’
‘only seven more miles
for the day’ whoever sang
the loudest, man and woman
with the biggest pipes
would get themselves
a treat—a wide chunk
of fresh green granny
apple Mr. Emerson will judge
and since nothing ever,
ever really happens here
I started walking behind
though a tall man with
a scar splat across his
nose yelled, “Scat, girl”
but I didn’t listen until
the two by two by two
came to the dock of the
River New, that great
gushing place daddy fishes
his one day off, one I’m
not to go near by myself
and they had the string
of raggedy men wade
right in as if that river
would part, still singing,
singing, cold water up
to their waists and
then chests and necks
and still they sang,
higher and louder
no Noah’s ark
just the cold flood
and them pairs
yelling out words
about proud gals
and mush as the
mushroom coat
man sat on his horse
smoking up a cloud,
yelling “easy, easy
boys, if one slips
then all are lost”
and before I could
even start to imagine
them drowned
they started
putting crying
women and children
on flatboats
shoving them off
and then the
silvery chain
started dancing
again
and all the men
wound tight about
that silvery chain
were stepping up
onto the other bank,
dripping and singing
I wish I was back
in Old Kentuck
and going where it was
I could not follow
so I turned back
and when I sat at
the table that night
mother and her
stupid-dead eyes
said what did you see
and I said nothing
then father said
without caring
where you been
and I said nowhere
taking a bite of beet,
chewing it to mash
and pulp as a fresh
stone crying
LIAR LIAR LIAR
popped up in the
weedy graveyard
behind the church.
“The Slave Trail of Tears is the great missing migration—a thousand-mile-long river of people, all of them black, reaching from Virginia to Louisiana. During the 50 years before the Civil War, about a million enslaved people [were forced]from the Upper South—Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky—to the Deep South—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama.” —Edward Ball (Smithsonian)
Mr. big stripey britches
wore a white hat
and coat the color of
those mushrooms you
never eat and he ruled the
show, loud talking and
sitting way up high
on a beautiful horse
prancing back and forth
as he held a gun
like a baby he sometimes
put down to take an onion
out of the mushroom coat
and grab a quick bite
and what came after was
two by two by two by two
of men glued together
with a long silver chain
followed by women
with rope tied round
their scabbed wrists
and I heard the sound
of hundreds singing,
a short man with a banjo
hopping around playing
the same old tune
and when he was done
he’d just start it again,
bobbing his fat neck
while his skinny friend
threw his little pale
arms out and out
wider and wider
so the voices wouldn’t
stop and the dusty feet
would stay in step with
the other dusty feet
“As I went up the new-cut road/
I spied a possum and a toad”
you never seen so
many bodies filing by
too many to bother
counting, an army of
stinking, sweating bug-bit
open-sored Bible legs
marching over the land
followed by a parade of
wagons stuffed up with
old folks and maybe sick
folks because there was
some groaning and there
was kids walking too,
a boy about my age who
stared at me as I stared
back for as long as we
could stare we did but
there was nothing either
of us was saying except
to know the other knew
and there was men with
whips and a lot of yelling
about ‘don’t drag behind’
‘only seven more miles
for the day’ whoever sang
the loudest, man and woman
with the biggest pipes
would get themselves
a treat—a wide chunk
of fresh green granny
apple Mr. Emerson will judge
and since nothing ever,
ever really happens here
I started walking behind
though a tall man with
a scar splat across his
nose yelled, “Scat, girl”
but I didn’t listen until
the two by two by two
came to the dock of the
River New, that great
gushing place daddy fishes
his one day off, one I’m
not to go near by myself
and they had the string
of raggedy men wade
right in as if that river
would part, still singing,
singing, cold water up
to their waists and
then chests and necks
and still they sang,
higher and louder
no Noah’s ark
just the cold flood
and them pairs
yelling out words
about proud gals
and mush as the
mushroom coat
man sat on his horse
smoking up a cloud,
yelling “easy, easy
boys, if one slips
then all are lost”
and before I could
even start to imagine
them drowned
they started
putting crying
women and children
on flatboats
shoving them off
and then the
silvery chain
started dancing
again
and all the men
wound tight about
that silvery chain
were stepping up
onto the other bank,
dripping and singing
I wish I was back
in Old Kentuck
and going where it was
I could not follow
so I turned back
and when I sat at
the table that night
mother and her
stupid-dead eyes
said what did you see
and I said nothing
then father said
without caring
where you been
and I said nowhere
taking a bite of beet,
chewing it to mash
and pulp as a fresh
stone crying
LIAR LIAR LIAR
popped up in the
weedy graveyard
behind the church.
Jenn Blair has published work in Appalachian Heritage, The Chattahoochee Review, South Carolina Review, Cold Mountain Review, Adirondack Review, and Berkley Poetry Review among others. Her book Malcontent is out from Press Americana. She lives in Winterville, GA.