(HOME IS THE PROUDEST of all INSTITUTIONS)
This is my Big Momma's garden. She was the daughter of Mary Hairston Pannill who was the daughter of America Hairston Calloway of the Hairston's Beaver Creek plantation in Henry Co. Virginia. It is her handwriting on the photograph with Home is the Proudest of all Institutions. She walked with a cane. Her cane was a broomstick. She called the broomstick her horse. She died before I was born, but she lived in Stuart, VA and her house is now the fire station. At her death, she asked that her boxwoods be moved to the grounds of the new hospital on the other side of town. They are still there, lining the circle drive.
CROSSING THE OCEAN
This ocean is such a burial ground. I read once that it can take months for a dead body to reach the bottom and by. the time it gets there, it is mostly gone, having been eaten by all kinds all the way down. Connecting in London Heathrow, we had free and unlimited beer and wine through British Airways. We landed in Accra in the dark on Bob Marley’s birthday a little drunk. As such, everywhere was a party. The thumping bass at our hostel in Jamestown, the old British part, shook everything. I hung Mimi’s silk shirt on the door knob. I had brought it with me as part of my ancestral past. Everything was so hot. Phil and I didn’t fall asleep until the music stopped and the music stopped when it was light. Earlier that night I'd chipped my front tooth on a beer bottle and thought about swimming in the ocean. We didn’t know when we set out for Africa that I was pregnant.
DAUGHTERS
The day we found out I was wearing a T-shirt for a family reunion. The reunion had happened five years before I was born. There's a box of them in the laundry room at my parent’s house. Nearly full term, the large fit over my belly - the extra rubber-banded in a ponytail at the small of my back. I was on a gurney. Belly mooned on my legs. On the ultrasound, they showed me the four-square of my child’s heart no longer moving. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I had to be restrained. Your Mom-mom talks to ghosts — her mother, Bernice, in particular, but after we lost you, Bea, to the next she stopped talking to her mom, your great grandmother, because she was angry she hadn't warned her about your death. I guess her mom had told her after the fact that she'd known the outcome all along, and Mom-mom was pissed.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
Righetous was the Hairston family's ferryman. Based out of Cooleemee, he took them across the Yadkin to the small community and mercantile there, or down the river to other Hairston plantations - poling. The forest is deciduous, thick and hiding even in winter. At Cooleemee Plantation I am walking down the slave-dug terraces; after two, I turn left. With my dog sniffing, nosing ahead of me. Parallel the river. Climbing under and over branches and logs. Getting caught. I can't see her anymore, but I can hear her snaggling through the undergrowth. Everything wet. The sky grey. My feet into the soft ground. Leaves.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
A small hill over-looking the river, I heard something and turned right. Righteous ferrying the boat to shore. Poling it. He had a big hat. A big beard tipped grey. I sort of saw my Mimi, but I didn’t. No one was on the ferry. He reached the bank. Tied it to a tree. A beautiful knot. A loop that looked as if he could just pull it and be away.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
Righteous arranged a log as a seat. Vertical like a tree again. He didn’t appear to be doing anything out of his normal. I tried to introduce myself, but he couldn’t see me. He took a pouch of tobacco out of his shirt pocket. Started smoking. I’m not sure if it was pipe or papers.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
I asked for Chrillis and she appeared in white and as a child. A night dress. Very slight. Angular face. Light skinned. She couldn’t see me. I looked right again. Over my shoulder. There was an Owl with dinner-plate eyes on a branch in a tree just behind Righteous. The Owl could see each of us when we couldn’t see each other. The Owl grabbed Chrillis on her shoulders. Lifted.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
His talons over her night dress. There didn’t seem to be blood. Or I couldn’t see the blood. I grabbed Chrillis from the Owl. Around her waist. Kept her on the ground. This seemed important. And then we, Chrillis and I, could sort of see each other, but we were more forces than bodies. The Owl landed on Righteous’ shoulder. Righteous didn’t make notice, just kept smoking, but I was sure Righteous could see the Owl. Was sure Righteous knew the Owl and the Owl knew Righteous.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
On shore, Righteous didn’t worry over the scuffle. He undid the knot. He got back on the raft. Poled it from the bank. Then, I was with him. It was unstable in the river. Trouble standing. Spreading wings, the Owl hit me overboard, held me under. It felt right. One of the candles was put out. The other spoke of the past, its dead.
RIGHTEOUS AND THE OWL
We have a large white hoop hanging from a limb in our backyard. Phil found it in an alley. I think it must have been the thing that held the glass in on an outdoor table. For a bit, it was low enough to the ground that I tried to teach Oyster to jump through it, but she would have none of it. My eldest daughter had died two weeks earlier and I’d been crying since lunch. On the phone, Mom-mom asked who George was. I told her there were many Georges in my past including the George who'd made my coffee that morning. She said it was very important, that this George had told her the Owl was also Chrillis and that Chrillis was all of it. I asked what is it to be from the oppressor, to know they are your people whipping up money through blood.
At the confluence,
a river and the ocean
in Ghana Phil was poisoned
for two days & I had a waking
dream I saw Righteous
placing an obol
my daughter behind the fire,
a silhouette, his beard.
pointing toward the salt
the pregnant street
dog at my feet inching
in the warm night. I climbed
into the ocean like a bed.
My eldest would be received
fresh from her life. I would ask
Righteous if he knew.
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