In the Beginning, There Was the Word

For Joe Minter, the African Village in America, and 1504

And when those white-sailed ships piled us together, cargo in the hull of hell, the word rode with us, our tongues anointed with the power of God. When the lash found our language, when they said don’t read or write, our tongues were still gilded with a heavenly word. We still sang that holy song, even in this strange land. Even here, God spoke to us and through us. Our hands made language and earth became fruitful, and song became prayer, and a people made do with the bones and scraps of america.

And we became messengers with each sin pitched against us— in Birmingham, there was God in the feet of the marchers and in the starched collar of Fred Shuttlesworth, in the curls and dimples of those four girls, in the boyish joy of Virgi