- Serwaa
The Cloud of Witnesses and the Power of Creation
There is power in creativity. There is power in making something out of nothing.
When I released my ebook A Cloud of Witnesses: Poems for Survivors on Amazon in 2019, I never realized the power of creativity until long after the book was released.
Dear reader, there is a power in creating the thing that you have longed and desired to see within this world. There is a power in actualizing your dreams, and taking a risk in seeing the manifestation of hidden dreams and talents. As you read the poem which inspired my ebook, I encourage you to open up your own proverbial notebook and pull out some hidden gems that you have been fearful of pursuing, and step out with a leap of faith and pursue something new in 2021.
“Cloud of Witnesses”
Elizabeth Peprah
The slaves gathered
Down by the riverside
Dancing
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Sunday
Was their day of freedom
So they danced
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Hooray!
Except for one
She paced.
Her heart raced.
The riverside was her freedom
And escape from bondage
No more white hands fondling her breasts
Or rather her chest
[See, she was only a child]
She looked into the river
As a dancing slave’s head
Bounced at the sight
“DEAR GOD! SHE JUMPED!”
-R.I.P. Sally-Mae, 13 years old
It’s the cloud of witnesses
Dancing in the breeze
Watching with ease
Every victimized woman
The cloud
Surrounds us
Expounds us into something greater
Enveloping those without hope
Cheering us on
When the light in our eyes is gone
With every thrust and threat of his weapon
Turning love into hatred
And despair
Leaving those to forsake prayer
“No, my sisters, this should not be”
Sings the cloud of witnesses
Sally-Mae’s descendants marched
With MLK
“Ruby the Beauty”
Was renowned for her looks
And it took a truck full of
Drunk hooligans from the Klan
To show themselves as “the man”
Taking turns to rape her
Humiliate the fate
Of her womanhood
Putting her in her place
For her beautiful existence
She stills her breathing
A year later, her little one is teething
The father was one of them
She sighs and cries
At the remembrance
Of that fateful night
And with all her might
She drowns her baby
In the little lake behind her home
She couldn’t allow her baby to bloom
“beloved”
‘I would rather erase her from the face of the earth than allow her to go through what I suffered and more’
Who will fight for the Negro woman?
As baby June’s body lay still
Ruby took a few large stones
And placed them in her coveralls
Each step felt like eternity
As she walked deeper and deeper
Into the river of sorrows
If she knew that that same
Water dripped with the blood of her ancestor Sally-Mae
Perhaps Ruby would never have done it
“GOOD LORD, SHE JUMPED!”
Her husband moaned
As he returned from work to see
The lifeless bodies of all that
Was left of his new family
Who will shed a tear for the colored woman?
It’s the cloud of witnesses
Dancing in the breeze
Watching with ease
Every victimized woman
The cloud
Surrounds us
Expounds us into something greater
Enveloping those without hope
Cheering us on
When the light in our eyes is gone
With every thrust and threat of his weapon
Turning love into hatred
And despair
Leaving those to forsake prayer
“No, my sisters, this should not be”
Sings the cloud of witnesses
Every night that she heard
Footsteps
Coming into her room, she puked
He was supposed to be her father
But 10 years after her mother committed infanticide and suicide with one blow
It erased everything that she ever did know
Her father forced her to become his mistress
They called her Sally-Mae
After a mysterious great-aunt of hers
Who ended her life as a slave
Sally-Mae wiped the tears from her eyes when he was done
And loaded a shotgun
She tiptoed to her father’s bedroom
Feeling like Nat Turner in his revolt
Her hands shook
As the “boom”
Erupted in the quiet farmhouse
Blood.
All she saw was blood,
Everywhere.
Sally-Mae cried as she walked
Towards the riverside
Moaning
Down by the riverside
Sighing
Down by the riverside
The moon shone brightly
Fireflies danced in the sky
“It was such a beautiful night to die”, she cried
One step
Two steps
Three steps
Four
This time, there was no one around to acknowledge the jump.
No one except the cloud of witnesses.
The congregation swayed and hummed
Tears of sorrow
As they watched the death of their future tomorrow
Three generations lived and died
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Years from now
Family gatherings will tell a different tale
Of mental illness in the
“Women of the family”
But they never knew the truth
My sisters, this should not be
Shhhhhh.
“We see.”
-Whispers, the cloud of witnesses.
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