The Castaway Poem by Tony Adah

Somehow the dark clouds descended
Upon the dark continent
With whips and shackles at hand
From the seas
The stallions galloped landward
And tremble bore on the landlords
Who first recognized the good things
Of the visitors;
And the trade began
A stubborn cousin is sold
Along with a thief as well a witch
As the chief recommended
Slave is the name
And slavery the trade
All on a triangle splashed in the Atlantic.

A slave is running away, half clad
With a broken shackle in one hand
And tattoos of horse whips
On his black bare back.
He's free at home
Still away from his home
A runaway fugitive in his land.

Those of us captured hardly breathe
In humid cells and soon sailing
On the tempest seas, not aware
Where the waves will toss us to
Or what will become of of us.

When we know, we are found
In the big cotton farms of the south
And the slavers sold and resold
Us black moving and breathing
Items of trade
And we procreated and left the fields
A heritage of continuity.

A far cry of freedom
But freedom came
That was then.
They still held us in low esteem
Until those of us who wanted freedom got it
Or were aided to loosen the shackles
Long gone but hanging in our souls
That was then
And now they kill us with guns
Of which shackles would still
Have been better than death
But freedom has come
Do we refuse the freedom to die
Now that they tell us that
Death is self inflicted?