Inheritance

It is summer in rural Tennessee 
In the sixties. I am young in the back 
Seat of our family car, a child of the 
North coming south to visit my mother's 
Relatives. After hundreds of miles on 
Highways, we are at last driving down the 
Dirt road to my grandparents' house. I love 
This place, so different from Indiana. 

On our left a wire fence is snarled with wild 
Passionflower and honeysuckle. I 
Like to sip the sweet drop of nectar from 
The honeysuckle's throat, as my mother 
Does. Beyond the fence stretch endless red dirt 
Rows of cotton, white and fluffy in the 
Boll on their dead dry stalks, ripe for harvest. 
On the right comes a rickety grey shack. 

I've see them before in the rural south, 
Scattered by fields –  assumed them abandoned, 
Never thought people lived  there – until now. 
Several black people stand on the porch, all
Ages, all skinny, dressed in rags. They watch 
Solemnly as we pass. I am unnerved 
By their bleak poverty, unblinking stare. 
I am guiltily relieved when they're gone. 

I look away but the memory is 
Fixed in place, caught like cotton on barbed wire. 
One day, my grandmother asks me to take 
A message to a black couple who live 
Nearby in another grey shack. It just 
Contains bare walls, bare floor, a stove. Though the
Woman at the stove is older than me, 
She is deferential, like I'm her boss. 

I notice they all are, like they've been trained. 
Why? One warm night, looking at the cotton, 
My grandmother explains Southern history: 
How slaves stooped all day beneath relentless 
Sun, worked their whole lives without pay, were whipped 
If they refused. I imagine myself 
Like them, toiling up the row, dragging the 
Sack in the thick heat, hungry, thirsty, tired. 

I am still young, so I ask, looking at 
The field (this field? This very field?), “How did 
They feel about that?” She answers dryly
“I don't think they liked it.” Something new grows 
In me. I wonder how they survived, and 
If I could have. I hope my ancestors 
Owned and whipped no one, feel overawed by 
The injustice, cruelty, needlessness. 

I think about the people in the shacks, 
Trapped in their inheritance by white law. 
In just these fields their ancestors labored 
Beneath the drilling sun, making white men  
Rich, as these do now, with not much more choice. 
When those ancestors lived in master's shack, 
Surely they had better hopes for these than
To work for so little and go hungry? 

That's all a long time ago now, and I'm 
Much older. My grandmother died. The fields, 
The wonderful woods, the shacks were plowed up 
To build a subdivision. Of all that 
Summer, I owe the most to the people 
On the porch. Their silent dull gaze follows 
Me down the years, watches me. I cannot 
Ride past now, and I cannot look away. 

© Larry Haworth 2017