It’s amazing how life puts us in spaces occupied by
people who came before us. Yet we grapple with the
same moral dilemmas from another space and time.
It was the spring of nineteen seventy-six. My friend
Mary, who was white, invited me to spend the day
at Wakulla Springs State Park with her parents.
I’d heard the tales about what happened there in
the late of night to the poor Black souls who ran into
the swamp never to return to the broken-down cabins
with rust-eaten tin roofs.
Sitting beneath old, lifeless cypress trees slumped over by the weight of the dead souls they carried.
I ascend into something silent shocked by the
jungle of oaks and palmettos where Black men
were chased in moonlight, caught and hung naked in
one of the moss bearded trees.
A truth not spoken of buried in the depths of the
springs. My eyes close as I see them running in
the blackness of night because of lies told.
Because they refused to be owned ever again.
Risking death because in it they found freedom.
They ran to escape the hunter only to be
betrayed by the moon.
My eyes opened to the stares as I sat with Mary and her parents. Eyes burned through my shoe-black skin with the hatred of their ancestors.
A touch of my hand and a smile from Mary reminding me that we can ascend from the past with forgiveness, hope, and healing.