Black Rez

Full fifteen miles outside of town,
way back where roadway ends~
you’ll find a cui of colored folks,
contained like pigs-in-pens.

“Black Rez” is what we called it then,
out where the Negroes lived;
sat well outside the township line …
foul land – “may God forgive!”

No lights, no streets, no sewage line,
just sheds and shacks and stone;
to make our way as best we could,
‘way out there’, all alone.

Enclosed by woods and barren-land,
your basic needs denied~
poor health, no education source,
protection fair deprived.

No mail delivered by the Crown,
with milk and bread a need;
home-made was craft in every house,
that many mouths might feed.

No battles fought, no treaty signed,
to bind us to restraint;
no threat to those of Euro cast,
in feathers … or war-paint.

Across this seaside ocean land,
of English, French and Scots;
small pockets of “restricted” sites
assigned they “black folks” lots.

Thus mixed by blood, Chief Dan and me,
I learned that from “the old:;
as they passed on what they could tell,
of hardships, strife and cold.

So “brothers” we … both red and black,
did through that hell survive~
a two-pronged deadly holocaust –
yet, we are still alive.

So heed you not to history books,
or what “the learned” says;
but seek the truth from those of us,
who come from a “Black Rez”.