Fatherland

When I was 5 years old

My grandfather

Decided it was time to sit me down

And discuss our heritage

This lesson was a direct result

Of him discovering my

Obsession with jumping

off the roof of his house

In direct violation of an express order

Not to do so

But danger was a foreign concept to me

And I was made out of Teflon

And rubber

Death was about as real as

Santa clauseAfter discovering mid flight

My grandfather brought me in

Grateful I had not broken any bones

and decided it was time for me

To hear my legacy

I come from the stock of murders

And thieves

Of bushmen and robbers

I am wiley and resourceful

I laugh hard and play for keeps

We are a honorable stock

And our morality is that of superior women

We are Cimarron

We are stolen back slaves

We are freemen with the conscience

To kill

And our children have wild hearts

And no sense of shame

My parents called me a tom-boy and tried to make me sit

My grandfather called me Nanny’s soldier

And told me to run everywhere

My grandmother told me that pants were unlady like

So my grandfather bought me shorts

At 7 he told me that rather than let their slaves go

The masters on Jamaican plantations burned their slaves

Quarters up in the middle of the night

Freedom for them

Was for the soul only

The bodies would forever be there’s

Fairytales and fantasies give us maps

For the impossible

Dreams are the playbook for life

If you can’t imagine it

Then you can never reach for it

We are told and we continue to tell

Stories that are impossible and improbable

We need them

To lead our bodies to new places

And we need them to hold

Our spirits together

My grandfather believe that the slaves who stole

Themselves back from moral men

Were honorable thieves

And superior beings

And thus gave us the bloodline of gods

We swam in the long forgotten blood of Poseidon

And the smiles of Loki healed our scars

Odon was in the salt of our tears and sweat

And Anansi kept our children clever

I come from an island of forgotten but not powerless gods

Thieves, murders, and robbers, all honorable men taking back

Their morality from the men who tried to steal their best.