Your presence, mother, is the living drama of a race
drama of flesh and blood
which Life has written with the pen of centuries.
Through your voice
Voices from the cane plantations,
the paddy fields, the coffee farms,
the silk works, the
cotton fields
Voices from plantations in Virginia
from farms in the Carolinas
Alabama
Cuba
Brazil
Voices from Brazilian sugar plants,
from the tonga drums, from the
pampas, from factories,
Voices from Harlem District South,
voices from slum locations,
Voices wailing blues going up the
Mississippi, echoing from rail road wagons.
Voices weeping with Carrother's voice
"Lord God what will have we done"
Voice of all voices in the proud voice
of Langston
in the beautiful voice of Guillen....
Through your back
Gleaming backs beneath the world's strongest suns
Gleaming backs making fertile with their blood
working soft with their sweat
the world's richest soils
Gleaming backs twisted on the torso
hanging from the gallows, struck down by Lynch
Gleaming backs (ah, how they gleam, those backs)
Gleaming backs
they gleam, they gleam, drummers of jazz
they break, they break the fetters of the soul
escape soul on the wings of music
... of sunlight, of the sun, immortal,
fecund
and beautiful
Through your lap, mother
Rocking those other people
spoilt by the voice of tenderness
and fed on your sustaining milk,
the good of poetry
of music, of rhythm and gracefulness,
sacred poets and wise men...
These people have no sons
for these which are born like wild beasts,
self generated, different things
are rather the sons of disgrace:
the hoe is their plaything
slave labour-their recreation..
Through your eyes, mother,
I see oceans of grief
lit by the setting sun, landscapes,
violet landscapes
dramas of Cain and Japheth.
But I see as well (oh if I sec...)
I see as well how the light robbed from your
eyes now glows
demoniacal temptress-like Certainty
glittering steadily-like Hope
in us, your other sons
making, forming, announcing
the day of humanity
THE DAY OF HUMANITY.
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