The Landing

What sailors first spied that lighthouse,
what ships smashed against those rocks,
hurled by waves at high tide,
gale force winds in a violent storm?
Who on shore beckoned mariners
with bogus beacons to hollow havens?
Savage, renegade blood which boiled
to kill the innocent pilgrims
and profit from booty of their ships:
the crown charters, the jewels, the servants,
fresh fruit, spices, herbs, and inventions,
books, clocks, locks of hair, and ointment.

In this place some refused to hate,
to drag these innocents to their deaths,
but welcomed them, married them,
danced with them the harvest,
helped them build schools and churches,
formed a community, and shunned
the men who took them captive.
Soon the captors succumbed to entreaty,
to build a new life with their victims,
form laws, statutes, oaths, and orders,
as free and unfettered men.

Such serenity stained and forgotten
by those who stole and transported
black bodies around the globe,
from coast to coast and port to port,
from tropics to temperate climes
(a triangle forged out of greed),
who made them work sugar fields
then sold the rum for cash
to purchase even more black bodies.
Those who joined in illicit union
with women not even their own.

Oh sons of pirates, bright blonds of May,
children of Negroes and natives,
did your parents on these rocky shores
consummate their love in a nation's birth?
Did they see their offspring
destined to teem from these climes
and spread as far as vision beholds,
as far as the spreading sea?

--- Thomas D. Jones