<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Acres Of Ancestry </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">As long as I have a pig and garden, no one can tell me what to do.</i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">—Fannie Lou Hamer</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Mine our lineages</div><div class="">You will find fortitude and insistence</div><div class="">I grew up on Heirs Property</div><div class="">A family blessing and a United States problem</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Took 15 years for me to come back down</div><div class="">My granddaddy’s dirt road and see</div><div class="">His wild green field free</div><div class="">And Black like me</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Secretly purchased marshland</div><div class="">From his father who was born a sharecropper</div><div class="">My daddy tells me how my grandma and granddaddy</div><div class="">Turned a swamp into firm land for a house</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Hogs, cows, vegetables, broom grass, and chickens</div><div class="">How Granddaddy Silas did this with mental</div><div class="">And soul injuries on brown and Pall Mall since age 13</div><div class="">How Grandma Lizzie listened to neighbor stories on the porch</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">How her children and granddaddy watched fields reap</div><div class="">How she prayed over our family</div><div class="">How they knew the land like God</div><div class="">Now</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’m thinking about the Combahee River Raid and Ma Tubman</div><div class="">How she kept saying:</div><div class="">My people ARE free</div><div class="">Now</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">My mind is jumping loops of Grandma Thelma boiling pine</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">“Trust a doctor for who?”</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">How one day the police pulled up the drive and I watched</div><div class="">With eight-year-old eyes as granddaddy said, “Get the Hell</div><div class="">Off this land” No blink</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">How my kin and the Earth ground me</div><div class="">Make me ask what’s 12</div><div class="">When I’m seeing 20/20</div><div class="">And the neon sign of stars read:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Sankofa: The Land says return to me</div><div class="">Sankofa: The Land says return to me</div><div class="">Sankofa: Mine your lineage for fortitude</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I insist</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Ain’t nothing wrong with us</div><div class="">But we been contortin’ and bendin’ Black</div><div class="">To earn our way to freedom</div><div class="">But these days</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The little one and I are outside</div><div class="">Growing squash and sage in grandma and granddaddy’s field</div><div class="">We watch the birds</div><div class="">We sway with the pine</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Seem like every time</div><div class="">I go outside I find</div><div class="">An artifact</div><div class="">Smooth blue glass, oyster shells, and brick</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The USDA got rules and regulations</div><div class="">We mine our lineages for fortitude and insistence</div><div class="">In this place of European land grants</div><div class="">Black codes and unjust generational wealth</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We are a listening people</div><div class="">Who know without having to speak</div><div class="">And we don’t mind watching the wind do work</div><div class="">Clear as day, in a vision, my Granddaddy Silas comes to me:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Chile, who you asking for freedom?</div><div class="">Don’t you know how to aim?</div><div class="">How to grow?</div><div class="">Don’t you know you Black as God</div><div class="">As the dirt all green grows up out of?</div><div class="">Don’t you know buildings go up and down every day?</div><div class="">Nature can takeover all dem ting dem folk</div><div class="">Worshippin’ and you ain’t a thing beggin’ to be seen, chile, BREATHE</div><div class="">You was born free</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Marlanda Dekine-Sapient Soul</div></div></body></html>