River Sing Me Home

by Eleanor Shearer

When the hurricanes came, they ripped up even the sturdiest trees; and when the white men came, they tore children out of their mothers’ arms. And so, we learned to live without hope. For us, loss was the only thing that was certain.

Without roots, things die. Many of us did die,

What the white man gave, he could always take away.

But now, here was the sea. Vast, defiant and unowned, for who, even white men, could claim it?

“Me mother to no one, so me try to be mother to all.

“The connection between all things. That we can’t just take; we must also give.” Mama B, too, touched the place on the tree where the bark had been peeled away. “All healing start from there.”

“We know that white men have paid to have so many of us. And to have all of us—everything we are and everything we do. I don’t think the money says anything about desire.

It took a long time, but I know my worth now—and I don’t measure it by what men will pay for me.”

That was how she had chosen to survive—by letting little pieces of herself fall away without resistance. She’d had to, or the grief would have killed her.

her mind empty of thoughts—hollow, like a coconut scooped of flesh.

They embraced and Mary Grace felt like water, pouring into every crevice of Rachel, filling her, quenching her thirst.

“We all got our gifts—the things we see that others can’t. All we can do is use them when the time come.”

Men have been inside me just as they have been inside Hope, even though I’m the one who paid for it. You are no better than any of us.

There were skeletons in the harbor, still wearing their chains.

“I do not mind feeling small. I do not need reminding that I am Nobody—as are we all.”

She felt as if she had stepped from solid ground into deep water. She was sinking into fear—the

“Because someone help me when me need it. And you should not take help if you not gon’ give it when the time comes.”

There must have been two thousand at least. An army. We don’t have many weapons, and we ache from years of work. Many stoop or limp or got limbs missing. But we was an army just the same.

(Orion’s tears were flowing again like rivulets. They fell down familiar paths, threatening to erode gullies in his cheeks, for he had wept these same tears before, and would weep them again and again until the end of his life.)

It was in those moments, letting the echo of the dream linger, that she would imagine that she really might let it all go one day. That she might surrender her body and let emotion rend her in two.

It was the healing of something broken that she had buried so deep inside her that no one had ever seen it.

“Me notice how the song on the first night move you. You are Akan?”

There was even death—Rachel had known many who chose this as a kind of freedom.

“Me don’t know much,” he said, “but me know that God love us. And we must take His love and use it to love one another.”

“Love is the heart of everything. God create us to love, and He send His son to us so that we can love one another better.”

same, even though she did not believe in a sky-god. She felt that if any god or gods existed, they would be diffused throughout everything and everyone on earth, neither benevolent nor malign, but simply existing, drawing everything together, living and dead.

Tomorrow, we will go onward and onward and onward—until there is nowhere left to go. Of course I will come with you. How could I not?

“Me never hope . . . me did not imagine it. You, here. It seem impossible. So . . . me glad.”

When the stream of childhood widened out to a river, the flow of adult life cut deep into the soil. The course of such rivers was not easily altered, but the smallest nudge, one way or another, could lead the river to turn in surprising ways.

But then, Rachel had always been confused by the lengths to which white men would go for the sake of possession.

“Thank you. My name is Nobody.” “How unusual.” Nobody’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Not really. I have been Nobody every day of my life, so in fact it is quite usual. At least for me.”

Rachel always saw tragedy in trees torn from the earth—things not as they should be, something living laid low where once it stretched to the heavens.

It would be years before he could say what was on his mind. And yet, love did not wait. Love was there in the beginning—even before the beginning. Love needed no words, no introduction. Existence was enough.

This is how we are remembered. In snatches of song, in dreams, in the smile that passes between mother and child. These are the parts of us that cannot be destroyed. These are the parts of us that feed the roots, and keep them strong. The soil is fertile. Our tree grows on.