So I’ve brought you here, to this plantation. Crazy, right?
What kind of person walks over the bones of slaves?
What kind of person is a slave to bones?
I know a poet, who calls it weird, this slaving of bones. This woman opens the legs of the dead, eats bread with severed ears, sometimes lives in the kitchen rooms at Monticello. We’ll visit her later.
If you could follow me out the front door, down the steps, to the tree-framed path. The trees, I don’t know, maybe willow. Their beauty sickens me. Past the sign to Smithfield Cemetery. I’m sorry. We have to do this.
This is the barren field. We believe slave cabins once stood here. As you can see, nothing now. Notice the alternate view of the plantation house on the rise above us. We can imagine. We can interpret.
The oak tree, over 500 years old. We know this almost for sure. We screwed in the borer, pulled out the core, sanded it down, and counted the rings. The tree is a window, a broken aria of fire. The tree is a ship of smoke, a river, a wedding. Its winter branches twist inside the sky.
This snow is not part of the tour.
If I open my arms and wrap them around the trunk, let’s pretend I can reach your cold hands. Let’s pretend this sudden snow doesn’t feel like sudden death. Let’s make snow slaves and call them angels. Look: if you stand here, behind the oak, the house disappears. I haven’t told this to anyone. We’re hidden, safe. Let’s stay here, hold hands, say thank you to the barren field. Let’s say nothing. I’m sorry.
Where do you want to go? I’ll take you anywhere. To your mother? Your father? Their bent faces at your memorial in New York. To the sweet, new candy you bought on your way home. To the girl on the phone right before he shot you. Let’s go there, to a moment of your breath. Let’s stay here. If we could, just tell me, please. Let’s never move again.
More here.