This poem is based on an interview with Clara Brown by a reporter for the Denver Tribune Republican, on June 26, 1885.
A Conversation With Aunt Clara
Owned. It's not the sort of notion
that lies easy on a mind. Traded,
sold, like critters, on a white man's whims.
Worked like mules, whipped and cursed
until humanness could hardly lift its head
toward a torch of hope that slavery never dims.
I queried Clara on that matter once,
while we lingered on her front porch
in that luminary, purple kind of light,
how it gets, you know, after sister sun
slides off to sleep behind yonder mountain
and stars pin up the curtains of the night.
"That time they auctioned off your man,
the four children, and after that, yourself,
each a separate way, and no one caring;
never again to meet, but for Liza Jane,
and her long since a woman grown. Mercy
Aunt Clara, didn't it seem beyond bearing?"
Rocked back in her chair, she did. A long
look later, said, "I thought it so honey, but oh,
think of our blessed Lord, how He was crucified!
My sufferings were nothing, compared to his pain.
I don't complain. He gives me strength to bear up.
His grace has erased every tear that I've cried."
I can see her yet; that weary smile, hands clasped
as in prayer, eyes half shut, presently speaking again,
"It's not ours to wonder, child. He keeps the reasons hid."
"Maybe so," I murmured. Bit my tongue to keep
from finishing the thought that came clear to me...
that freedom worked her harder than any master ever did.
© Lyn Messersmith 5/2003
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