<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="">Another Strange Land: Downpour off Cape Hatteras (March, 1864)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size: 17px;" class=""><i class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>for my ancestor</i></div><div style="font-size: 17px;" class=""><i class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>in the Pennsylvania 25tth Colored Infantry</i></div><div style="font-size: 17px;" class=""><i class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>aboard the Suwanee</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">First a penny-sized hole in the hull</div><div class="">then eager saltwater rushing over</div><div class="">us and clouds swirling and clotting</div><div class="">the moonlight—no time to stop and look upon it</div><div class="">as the hole becomes an iron mouth,</div><div class="">makes strange sounds, peels and tears</div><div class="">open iron as iron should not open—</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">muffled and heavy us becoming underwater</div><div class="">we confused the metal echo and thunder</div><div class="">as the same death knell from God’s mouth—</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">we been done floated all this way down</div><div class="">in dark blue used</div><div class="">uniforms, how far from slavers’ dried-out fields</div><div class="">in Virginia, Pennsylvania—wherever</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">we came from now we</div><div class="">barely and only</div><div class="">see and hear an ocean</div><div class="">whipped into storm</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">not horror, not glory, but storm</div><div class="">not fear, not power, but focus</div><div class="">on the work of breathing, living as the storm</div><div class="">rocks us and our insides upside down turns</div><div class="">hard tack into empty nausea—</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">so close to death I thought I saw the blaze-</div><div class="">sick fields of Berryville again, the curling fingers</div><div class="">of tobacco, hurt fruit and flower—</div><div class="">but no, but no.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I say no to death now. I’m nobody’s slave</div><div class="">now. I’m alive and not alone,</div><div class="">one of those who escaped and made myself</div><div class="">a soldier a weapon a stone in David’s sling</div><div class="">riding the air above the deep. I grow more dangerous</div><div class="">to those who want me. I ain’t going back</div><div class="">to anywhere I been before.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I grab a bucket. You grab a bucket. We the 25th</div><div class="">Pennsylvania Colored Infantry, newly formed</div><div class="">and too alive and close to free</div><div class="">to sink below this midnight water. 36 hours—chaos</div><div class="">shoveling-lifting-throwing ocean back into ocean</div><div class="">to reach land and war in the Carolinas.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I stole my body back from death and going down</div><div class="">more than once. I steal my breath</div><div class="">tonight and every night I will not drown.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Aaron Coleman</div></div></body></html>