The Sugar Trade

Sugar cane sways in the breeze,

reminding us in waves,

life ebbs and flows like the sea.

*

Anguished pleas from bended knees

resound from bygone days.

Sugar cane sways in the breeze.

*

What of them that toil and bleed,

whom only time will save?

Life ebbs and flows like the sea.

*

What of them that would be free,

of them that hope and pray?

Sugar cane sways in the breeze.

*

Prayers hang from the cotton trees.

Hope sleeps in unmarked graves.

Life ebbs and flows like the sea.

*

For planters, priests, and thieves,

for rebels and for slaves,

sugar cane sways in the breeze.

Life ebbs and flows like the sea.

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[Author's Note: This poem was first published in the chapbook, Beyond the Horizon: Journeys in Poetry and Prose, 2010]