Pestilence

Six thousand men strong, the army poured toward the sea.
Slavery’s wide wings gliding overhead
spread an infecting shadow as, step by step,
they swept like a battalion of ravenous ants,
advancing through the landscape and leaving a stench
drenched in sweat, shit, vomit, terror, and smoke.
The gentlefolk of every village burned,
borne by the black tide, shuffled in the slavers’ wake,
awake for the first time to a larger fate,
indeterminate but nasty: on the world stage
in an age when a workforce could be bought and sold.
Golden, the flow of human life down the green slopes.
Hopes shriveled in the glare of the distant bright
whitewashed castle’s acrid glitter in sunlight.


--Marilyn Nelson,  (1946- ), African American poet and translator, Poet Laureate of Connecticut, from Faster Than Light, 2012

Image: Sculpture by Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907), "Forever Free," 1867