Resurrection

Nat Turner’s Rebellion took place in 1831. He and a band of fellow enslaved persons took the lives of over 50 people, including planters and their family members

What if Nat Turner’s Rebellion had succeeded. Maybe he would

have birthed a trend, the way protests now bloom viral after black

bodies are rendered fallow. Would people still root for a Nat

who craved more sumptuous fare; to be free sweet in his mind

like cane-cum-refined sugar his hands once cultivated,

or the way a cotton shirt reminded his fingers of the pluck

of white bolls he hated. Today’s revolt, to challenge a knee

in a neck where it’s summarily planted or slow a bullet’s trajectory,

John Woo-style, before it landed. These thoughts rise up

like discontent-lined hymns to shorten bondage, planter eulogies

sown, hoed, and flowering amid sonorous darkness.

A love of jesus grew Nat’s courage skyward in lofty sway

from bondage to freedom. To wit, one has to reap carefully

to glean the long-buried dead. Dismay mourns

the insurrections of the past while fearing

the bitter uprising never quite going down as planned.

Source: Poetry (May 2021)