Three Centuries

Voyagers through the terrain of time
Living out three centuries simultaneously
Time travelers in the torrid zone
Navigating its fraught territory

The near past is nothing to speak of
Replete with close encounters with dread
Luckily therefore, we shy away from nostalgia
After all, these were labeled our lost decades
Moreover, even the earlier eras bore a taint of calamity
Of pawnage at home and, in middle passages, chattel slavery

We made our accommodations, and devised our survival strategies
At times resisting those who marked our lands as uncharted territory
They came with breech-loading muskets, Maxim guns at the ready
Meanwhile we had nature's usual afflictions too as adversaries

Mindful of the mosquito principle, we cultivated fever trees
Prepared potions of bitter roots contra miasmas and rank diseases
Plainly the ancients suffered the ailments but didn't have the vocabulary
The graves were getting full - these days we'd call it excess mortality

Black gold and crown jewels extracted, there were protection treaties
Signed under duress, some of the chiefs yielded to malign authority
The structural adjustments of yore, a taste of excessive liability
A short sale, in retrospect they put a human face on ugly realities

Young, ever hopeful, unencumbered by the past, we look forward
As an article of faith, trusting that better days lie ahead
In time, as well as in place, removed from the burden of deference
We bring forth the elements of survival to charge our present

Fumes, fragments abound, shards of memory
That the storytellers left, the faint glimpses of glory
Elements of our present could do with a touch of modernity
We hold on, we hold fast, and we will tell our story

And so some of us, by default, have found ourselves living in three centuries
Simultaneously navigating tradition and modernity
Overlapping frames, for humanity knows no boundaries
No one is coming, it’s up to us to shape the memories

Off kilter, confronted, as we are, with many uncertainties
We wear, as protective armor, our masks of civility
Treading a fine line, but finally in charge of our destiny
Comforted, we attempt the choreography of normalcy

So, the battle enjoined, charting our own direction
The upshot now, the nature of our contribution
Clear-eyed, is to press beyond a naive sentimentality
And demonstrate that we move forward through community

Truth and reconciliation, a conversational strategy
Social living, the antidote to manifest destiny
In the torrid zone, then, this was a matter of necessity
We paid our premiums, soul insurance was the remedy

Three Centuries, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Out of the Past - The Three Sounds
• Side by Side - Dianne Reeves
• Let's forget about the past - Clyde McPhatter
• Now's the Time - Charlie Parker
• Back to the Future - D'Angelo
• Jazz in the Present Tense - Solsonics
• Out of the Past - Art Farmer
• I Can See the Future - Incognito
• Out of the Past - Benny Golson Sextet
• Til It's Done (Tutu) - D'Angelo
• The Past, The Present - Kupla

See previously: The Torrid Zone and Soul Insurance


File under: Africa, culture, observation, perception, identity, strategy, Social Living, memory, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 18, 2022