When I performed with Baaba Maal Pt. 2
After the performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, myself, Lemn Sissay, TJ Dema and Inua Ellam. recorded our poems. What you have here in this blog is free download of the recording.
You can read the original blog and my excited remembrance of the event HERE.
This poem was inspired by the will of Harriett Tubman. She was an escaped slave who risked her life to return to the South numerous times at personal risk to bring African slaves from the pro-slavery inflamed South to the ‘Free North'.
“Moss grows thicker on the north side,” Harriet was told by her father, Ben Ross. This little piece of advice helped the conductor of the ‘Underground Railroad' free 319 persons to their freedom, through forested terrain, over the Mason Dixon, into New York. Some kept going into Canada.
Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
- Harriet Tubman
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'* 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.
NB: *gravaliscious - greedy **Polaris – The North Star
All right reserved and copyright . Zena Edwards©
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