BLACKSTONE

BLACKSTONE

On shoulders of ghosts I stand
echoes from welts of whip-cracking time
carried by them, floating on sounds of panicked tongues
their history mine.

Atop age blackened stone "block," iron rings dangling
looking to where a river meets its ocean
on a beautiful Savannah spring
a view blooming of sorrow.

Crumbling, pitted, defiant
stained with 100 years; blood old
blemished by the fear of thousands
upon which, now rest my feet.

Next to me he smiles
clenching his smokey hand
not wanting to let go; he nods so
I mouth to him, "Grandfather, you are now free."

My tears water
just as hundreds of years before
they seep into stony pores
I am added to them, to my past.

On my shoulders do ghosts remain
I carry their suffering, echoes recorded; stories of
their metal notes of clanking wrists and ankles; in shackled song
strangers in land now mine

...may rest in peace of me
on this Sufferstone; free.