Generational Plowing

By Trinity Williams

What happens to God’s people

when they’ve been forced here to plow?

Are the wrinkles in their brows

a reflection of the furrow in the ground?

Does the sweat from their head

seep into the soil to fertilize the seed?

Like how our ancestors birthed children

who grew fast and strong like trees…

who birthed dream after dream

after dream after dream—

To spoil like old milk

and soon turn them sour

because there was no reparation

for the sweat we shared

to create the seed’s irrigation.

Still feeling like our great-greats

stuck working on plantations,

and now our pain is being seen

as a cruel act of desperation.

So… what happens to God’s people

when they’ve been forced here to plow?

They wrinkle, sweat, grow, dream—

then spoil… then sour.

From suffering under a system

abused by the white man with power.

(Answer to Langston Hughes—“What happens to a dream deferred”)