The Red Clay Tale Poem by Romella Kitchens

There we were on a Georgian red clay road and
you were a younger cousin.
Didn't have any shoes.
Hair barely caught up.
Tin roof for living under.
Tin roof for dying under...
A Georgian red clay road.
We were from the city.
We were from up North.
Your hair was crinkly blonde.
Your dress completely filled with dirt.
I hoped we would take you with us.
‘Cause anything was better than where
you were.
Anything.
Your eyes were green.
No one spoke about who your daddy was
because in the South anger killed.
Your eyes were like the White man's eyes
who owned the farm your family share cropped on.
We brought you oranges, and shoes and pens,
paper, books to read, hope to retain.
We brought you canned vegetables, juice and meat.
We wanted you to have canned food to eat for years.
Even though there was no concrete.
A sagging, rot wood porch.
Near a Georgian red clay road.
We had to go home.
But, you just knew we'd come to take you with us,
away from all that hell.
But, you father said, "No."
He wanted to stay Southern, was so afraid of change
being worse than what he had.
So, we left you all there and couldn't find you when
the farm was sold to a corporation that constructed
a mall on top of all those people and memories.
Everyone wept. Wondered if all of you were still alive.
Left you there, a little girl crying, running after our car,
down a Georgian red clay road.