The Return

Off the coast of a small island in Georgia, a vessel called the Wanderer,
Stretched across marshy waters of the Dunbar Creek.
She shook and wavered, upon arrival,
Held us like a box, our bodies suffocating, herded collectively.
Our sunken eyes burdened with unspoken sorrows,
Sinking into muscles, coiled and tight. Waiting for release.
Our freedom resting like a flighty bird,
Immune from our invitation and wishes.
Yet lying just within our grasp.
Soon the call rings loud and clear.
And our legs run, synced in bravery.
Jump and push, scream and shout–then we best the devil.
Hold tightly, bind and toss, into a dangerous end.
A regained freedom shines, like sunlight on the water.
Golden relief, a light rising.
From the depths of us, warm and steady.
Gone are the devils, gone is the anger,
We stand on the decks,
Mouth stopped in laughter, loud and free,
Tasting salt in lighter air. Catching angel wings.
Rapid breaths subsiding, as we rest
Under the dainty strokes of sky blue,
dipping into the untamed wilderness of thick vegetation,
Perhaps, in another time, another universe
We would have come across this land, a haze of nature’s wonder
And Lived.
After the work is done we cannot rest, we hold hands
Mother to daughter, Father to son,
Communicating an unspoken agreement
Of freedom that rests on the tides of salvation
Do we cry? Or do we laugh?
Mother, my restless mind, can’t stop my feet
From copying your valiant strides approaching the ship’s precipice
When you lead, I follow
Where you fall, I’ll fall
An escape seized in force, freedom in death–
More fulfilling than a fated life of torment.
Our red wrapper and our beads collapse and break,
Our dreams of lives we would have lived dip and submerge.
Our fears, lost beneath the waves.
Can’t help, my apprehension, so I hold you tighter,
But we loosen, lungs filling,
As we fall into the great mother,
Water of earth, raging turquoise.
People of the sun, surrendering and drowning,
Tasting blue water, fresh and tinged with brine, bleeding
-into past and present,
Pain and survival.
Our bodies the
hue of brown and red earth,
Closed into caresses of water,
Flowing in·cap·su·la·ting, surely.
while she stills, a vessel without a captain,
Holding the haunting memory, of
We Igbos, born from water,
Enacting autonomy over our souls.
Here lies our bodies,
Willingly returned to where we were made
To the waters that saw us first,
And just like the waves:
We are here, as we have always been.

Ise.