Once Upon You Poem by Rex-mayor Ubini

Once upon you, black earth - a loamy somber soil,
which retains life and verdure for its vegetation.
You once held hostage; the adopted seeds of the sky
before you were slaved across the aloof river side.
From the writings of ages, kismet bought your blames.
That’s why you sacrifice no heed
to the those that call you names.
The great tree with smiling ebony skin;
out of your shade of refuge,
the brightest sun called her first born.
You nurtured your daughters and sons
in a hut moulded with red mote and makuti.
From the records of time, the white ocean overflowed, and
pushed her snow souls to your thriving land.
They broke into your museum and glommed your diamonds;
you were the first to rise with the illuminative suns.
Thus they denied it on this planet moors,
but they hugged it secretly in their psyche.
They stole, they abducted, the lips that sucked your milk.
Ignorance made you bartered your kings and princes;
for guns and white horses.
But I wonder, if your tears oozed more
than your sweat ever irrigated your cassava plants;
when the rod of hell wrote white names boldly,
on each of your sons’ back.
I wonder, if you heard from the mouth of the wind,
the wail of their abject pains;
occasioned by an unfriendly cold near the anglo-sea,
and the flesh stealing lashes of slavery whips.
I wonder, if you saw the thunderbolts in their eyes;
as hunger brutally strangled their life.
You sold, they stole, they rape your breasts;
I wonder, if your regrets stood bravely
when you heard them moaning loudly;
as they forcefully pushed erection
through the walls of their virginity.
But that was yesterday.
Today, the dark throats that echoed the pains of slavery,
are now the pianos that thrill the world,
particularly in New York City.
They say, something in their spirits longs for home,
but they can’t come home again.
They have lost the path through which their master,
took them away from your yard.
But they say, no matter where they are,
You are in their hair,
You are in their walk
You are in their eyes
and in the melody of their talk.
But they wouldn’t have come back;
to where poverty has her sunken eyes
on the buttocks of your son’s shorts.
Their toes drill holes on their slippers.
They have deep dark cracks on their heels.
My dear black mother,
history has grown older than Methuselah;
the wind will not take her breath,
until she sees you rise from your pains and shame.
So rise now.
Rise! Black Ocean rise!