the death of a Senator I think about him; the man that looked out on Lafayette Square and saw freedom, but could not have it; he is contained behind glass; locked into a parlor; between public space and private had to slip behind a wall at seven gables; and during the winter he had to keep the hay bed warm; him; he lived in the attic and as the winter increased he lived within confined spaces he, with his limitation; with conscripted color; he lived there like the bauble head caricature of Louis Armstrong; and its always winter; before Robert Livingston partition the land before the signing of the Emancipation; he lived in the red barn near the stable and he groomed; he withdraw the pee-pot cleaned the spittoon; served mutton to dignitaries beneath parasols he did not meet the eyes; did not speak; just listened; and when the master died he hid the jewels of the mistress in his waist coat was a sabotage; and where has it all gone; why does his face- less face appear to me at night or morning or whenever he decides to give me audience; his name is Aaron or Prophet dropping crumbs back to Philadelphia across manumission and he will never receive credit; and he could fight on both side and sell his people; for he could have been a slave driver; he is more loyal to his master than to his children and when they left him; he continued as usual; he acted as if he was without family; but how can he reclaim them in death how can he tell his story without proof; only some docket in an archive; only the pencil marked ex-out with a left hand he said, he is dead but he is alive in spirit. and I think about him with all his idiosyncracies; and how the Senator bought him from the background of Tennessee from places called Murisfree and Brownsville; the plantation at Stagville his sharecropper’s back; his lack of elocution; as he saved antiques as he held down his manliness in defeat; he came back somehow hiding in a box shipping himself on the keel of ship; a mutiny on a skiff he is the color of godly raiment; but his name meant possession the rest is left to conjecture; and his thoughts have no merit maybe a tool left in the carriage house or the nailery or maybe whale blubber in New England and its still winter; opening the white bible the only living record; in the cellar of a wall of Frederick Douglas or the journal of David Rugles; he did not have reading glasses on the wish of the task master; only to be kept, never a free thinker; or a master builder but a token; a folk without folktale; he is lowered to spiritual, but in fact metaphysical.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 03:11:15 +0000