Arna Bontemps:

A Black Man Talks of Reaping

THE DAY-BREAKERS

Southern Mansion

 

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Snally Gaster's African American Phat Library Experience

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A Black Man Talks of Reaping

 

I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I planted deep within my heart the fear
that wind or fowl would take the grain away.
I planted safe against this stark, lean year.

I scatterd seed enough to plant the land
in rows from Canada to Mexico.
But for my reaping only what the hand
can hold at once is all that I can show.

Yet what I sowed and what the orchard yields
my brother's sons are gathering stalk and root,
small wonder then my children glean in fields
they have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit.

 

THE DAY-BREAKERS

We are not come to wage a strife
  With swords upon this hill,
It is not wise to waste the life
  Against a stubborn will.
Yet would we die as some have done.
Beating a way for the rising sun.

 

Southern Mansion

Poplars are standing there still as death
And ghosts of dead men
Meet their ladies walking
Two by two beneath the shade
And standing on the marble steps.

There is a sound of music echoing
Through the open door
And in the field there is
Another sound tinkling in the cotton:
Chains of bondmen dragging on the ground.

The years go back with an iron clank,
A hand is on the gate,
A dry leaf trembles on the wall.
Ghosts are walking.
They have broken roses down
And poplars stand there still as death.