Young Man

Young man
We are only three generations
Apart.
Our lives are
Radically
Different.

You sweated in cotton fields
Whose blossoms
Were as white
And dreadful
As the man who
Owned
You.

Owned you.

Those words are intolerable
Unthinkable to me
Three generations after you lived
Died
And were shoved
Into a red dirt grave
In the Mississippi
From which we both sprang.

Young man
I do not even remember your name
Though I saw it
On surviving slave rolls.

I want to feel the numbing pain
Of your life
But all I can do
Is imagine
And that is
Not
Enough.

Young man
I am sorry.
Sorry for your tears
And agony of your years.
But that changes
Nothing.

Young man
I would kill the man
Who enslaved you.
That is
Of course
Impossible.
He died long ago
In the comfort
Of clean sheets.
And my wanting to make things
Different
Changes nothing.

The one who chained you
Whipped you
Sent his dogs in pursuit
Of you
Laughed at your misery
And kicked your corpse
Into a poorly marked grave
Was my
Great Grandfather.

I visited the weedy patch
In which you lie.
You name is weather-worn
Illegible.
He is buried up the hill
From you
And the marker stone
For his body is gleaming granite.

I spit on that stone
Though there was
In that defiance
No redemption
For you or me.

Young man…
I am sorry.