"Many Rivers"

                                                                                                         I wonder what
                                                                        My twenty times removed
                                       Grandmother thought
             When she stepped
Ashore in 1620
          Did she know
                              She would be the one
                                                              Giving birth to a nation
                                                                                      Her menstrual flow
                                                                  Would join with
                                            So many others
Bubbling westward with
                                       A nation’s manifest
                                                                         Destiny
                                                                                      Shouldering aside those
                                                                                                                             Arrows of outrageous
                                                                                                               Fortune
                                                                              Making an Ox-Bow
                                   Across an entire continent
Bringing me back
                             To the same Atlantic
                                                               Shore that
                                                                               Saw her
                                                                               Arrival
                                                                          It matters not
                                                                                     My family came
                                                                    From there
                                                                                     To here
                                                                                   OR
                                                                           Yours were
                                                                           Forced into a
                                                                         Middle passage
                                                                                 Of Hell
                                                                                              All that matters
                                                                                                                       Is we precious people
                                                                                                          Are here
                                                                             Our blood streams
                                               Joining mixing with
                  Those native waters
Here before us
                          We have populated
                                                        An entire continent
                                                                                   Instead of
                                                    These United States
                                                                             It should have
                                                            Been called
                                                                                    The land of many Rivers.

                                                                          -The End-