(to Ellen Gallagher, American artist)

Can the savannahs
Ever cover
The artefacts of pain,
The buried scribbles
Of forgotten chains?

Can the forests
Outgrow the sense
Of shadows shackled
In rows, the flow of flesh,
Through the beaten-down dawn?

Can the seas wash away
The groaning ships,
The bedded bones, iron-gripped,
Where stolen kingdoms shine
In the aquarium of time?

Can the moon's bruised eye
Ever deny
The bitter fields
Where the sweet wealth grew,
Where cotton, like dew,
Was thrashed by the wind?

Can the centuries soothe
The grief that's etched
Each night on the stars,
As time without end
Unfetters each moment.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2016

Published in POET TO POET #1 BRIDGING THE WATERS - SWANSEA TO SAG HARBOR by Peter Thabit Jones and Vince Clemente, 2008