Of African Mud and Love - a poem by Christopher D. Sims

My great
great great
great great
grandfather

was a Nigerian
with Cameroon
blood 

who was raised
in Greene County,
Virginia; who owned
a farm somewhere near
there, where many

African American
people landed, existed,
persisted, tented to land
with golden brown tans,
big hearts, and skilled
hands.

I am a
Displaced African
born of mud and
love.

I suppose
My Ancestors
Knew the
movement of
the stars

that one day
this land would
be ours

But first
we would 
endure scars,
lynchings, and
prison bars.

My African blood
boils, but when
I touch a leaf

or the Earth's soil

I know I am
grand royal,
loyal to Black
liberation.