The Legacy of Judah

by Ayanna

Great Grandmother came
over the seas from Hairoun
and landed on sorrow sands.
In her hands she brought
gifts of spices and scents,
of sauces and strength to endure
the slips and slights of a land and a time
that would not accept a woman alone
and Black.

Great Grandmothers gifts
led her to grief at the hands of a man
not of her hue and origin
who got her with a man-child
with the tell-tale lighter hue.
To cover his shame,
from her, the child was taken,
and raised in cold lands away from the taint of his mother's stain.

With this knowledge handed down
to each successive girl child breeding
Every time my womb thickens
with the ripening of the moon
it is in preparation for the return
of what was cruelly taken.
And the pain that comes with each bloodletting
echoes Great Grandmother's pain and loss.

And now, since shades and kings
in my dream sea, divine,
that there will be a son
called Judah in my life-line,
I pray that he will be in your likeness
and thus have your seed restored to
your bosom, Great Grandmother
The traveler from Hairoun*.

(work in progress)

* Hairoun is the original Amerindian name for St. Vincent

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