Paul traces
his genetic ancestors
back to Maryland
the Eastern Shore
a grand house of slave owners
and halts the historic search
at the shores of the Atlantic
not wishing to know
what atrocious portion
of feudal England
taught them
this historic violence.
He would not be welcome
in that house.
He may have met a young
Frederick Douglas.
He wonders if their faces
would look familiar to his mirror
or if their privileged countenance
would cause them to appear as strangers.
He checks himself.
His own barely acknowledged privilege
in these days of John Floyd
and Black Lives Matter.
He plans to go there one day
once the Eastern Shore pandemic
is safely in the history books
so he may stand on that land
and see how it bore up
to the unchristian mistreatment
of the people who harvested the fields
and carried milk to table
but were not allow to share
in the bounty.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 