Silver feather slaves

Author Unknown

I the ancient kingdom of Benin water was the realm of the ancestors; it was seen as a mirror reflection of the land of the living. So where is my father?

Is he waiting for me under the water. Will he approve of me or beat me or love me, or even know me. In the kingdom of Benin metal was traded for pepper, ivory, and finally slaves. Metal— brass, silver. History lives in the realm of the imagination as much as dreams.

How does „me“arrive in this equation? How does the reflection of my culture shine on me? Slaves across tee water, the trauma of racism.

My father did not particulary like the word black. My father would grow up acquire metal, then what escape and peace it could buy.

If water brought us here, and it did, and , it is the realm of the ancestors—where’s my mother?

The reflection in the mirror this morning is somewhere beyond me.

The construction of the African American me goes back over the water, past father, Daddy.

So much of my life has been a reflection of that decision to trade flesh for metal.

My life has been lived in the realm of shame, I look to water, water to heal, water to cleanse. Water to nourish.

Though I think honesty is what will heal me— honesty and the courage to feel again.

The realm of the ancestors, if it’s water and my father is there, he is there without the metal— wedding ring or gun.

He is bathing in the reflection of a young boy’s dreams. When we look at his reflection it is of a boy without shoes or shame.

Water can be polluted.

The history of Benin was preserved in metal, stolen by the British, put in museums.

Now it is me, centuries from home taking notes in a

museum, learning my father is in the water, ancestor, in another realm.

In the morning’s mirror the reflection goes into the realm of the land of the dead.

In my lips, my jaw I see my father, metal, and ships upon water. Did he ever really love me?