Once When I was Tree

Once when I was tree, African sun woke me up green at dawn.

African wind combed the branches of my hair. African rain washed my limbs.

Once when I was tree, flesh came and worshipped at my roots.

Flesh came to preserve my voice. Flesh came honoring my limbs.

Now flesh comes with metal teeth, with chopping sticks and fire launchers.

And flesh cuts me down and enslaves my limbs to make forts, ships, pews for other gods.

Now flesh laughs at my charred and beaten frame, discarding me in the mud, burning me up in flames.

Flesh has grown pale and lazy. Flesh has sinned against the fathers.

Now flesh listens no more to the voice of spirits talking through my limbs.

If flesh would listen, I would warn him that the spirits are displeased and are planning what to do with him.

But flesh thinks I am dead, charred and gone.

Flesh thinks that by fire he can kill, thinks that with metal teeth I die.

Thinks that all the voices linked from root to limb are silenced.

Flesh does not know that he does not give me life, nor can he take it away.

That is what the spirits are singing now. It is time that flesh bow down on his knee again.

From Ta-Nehisi Coates, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Issue #3