The grey houses

The grey houses sit like old rocking chairs

holding mem'ries at the breast.

They watch o'er Niggras hauling cotton fresh

across yon fields that slaves once trod.

The intenseness of their gaze cause fires to flash

in woods once guardians to a lingering smoke.

Wisteria drapes them front and back, Godiva-clad

hair tangled in knots and plaits.

The weathered skin of their old and gnarled flesh

witness to tales hid 'hind their framed doors.

Who cares what vision might twinkle in their eyes

curtained behind the glaucoma of chattered panes?

Who'll sit long 'mong the wizened boards of their pain

or press ears to the earth to hear the blood of their heart?

These ole ones are too soon wrenched from the home of the soul

destroyed, chopped down, New Africans brought to these shores

shackled, scarred, twisted, torn out of place

to be mem'ry to progress all too some forgot.