The Voiceless Past

A terrain of uncertainty
And a time of imposition
It was rough going, to be frank,
Fraught days best left forgotten

We eked out a strange kind of life
The small mercies sufficient unto themselves
When dread was a daily intruder
And our only defense was a stare

Branded itinerant, of no fixed abode
Still we fashioned temporary shelter
Falteringly, we laid our bed of unease
Always wondering when we would next hear laughter

But even in the most precarious moments
We remembered the words of the ancestral songs
And even if we could only sing them softly
We were comforted by their blanket of soul

Serene about the way forward, resolute about the challenge
This interlude shall pass, and we will leave our mark
And the elders' refrain will resound
Full throated, all parts sung in harmony:

In those painful hours, our hearts were hoping
In those silent days, our eyes were watching
In those dark years, our wounds were healing
For even with the tears, we knew our time was coming

The spirits returned our voices, truly the world will remember
And we shall tell everyone the story of those dark chapters
How we never gave up the struggle and proved our mettle
Remember: there is more in the mortar than the pestle

The Voiceless Past, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• We're Gonna Make It by Alyson Williams and Ted Mills
• Tryin' Times by Donny Hathaway
• When We Get by by D'Angelo
• Hard Times by Baby Huey
• Stare and Stare by Curtis Mayfield
• Hard Time by Gregory Isaacs
• Protection by Massive Attack
• Time Tough by Toots and the Maytals
• Protection by Gregory Isaacs
• Tryin' Times by Roberta Flack
• Remember by Hank Mobley

After Talking Drums

File under: culture, memory, observation, perception, strategy, displacement, Ghana, coup, Africa, poetry, toli

Writing log. June 6, 2022