I drowned once, you
know?
I was a sandy blond
child in the muddy waters of Georgia
The tobacco cut
knife had been put down for the day
Sticky with
nicotine sap coating its curved blade
The men and women
had come in from the fields
In from the sea of
green leaves roasting in the southern sun
The workers gathered
their families
Around the
irrigation pit
To relax
To swim
Somehow
Someway
I found myself falling
in
My seven years of
living did not include learning how to swim
Not even tread
water
So
Down, down, down, I
went
Like a coin tossed
in a wishing well
But this was no
wish of mine
As much as it was a
bad dream I was stuck in
I stood on the clay
colored bottom
Looking up
Through the twenty
feet of water
My skin growing
cold and clammy
Dull deadness
I was becoming
For I was watching
my own death
Living through it
On my way to not
living at all
I was acting out my
end without an applause
For the angels and
demons
Fighting over who
would get my soul
Were too busy to
clap
My mother screamed
from the other side of the pit
Trying desperately
to save the life of her youngest son
But her voice was
no contest for the irrigation pump
Then as I was
fading away
While the muddy
water filled my lungs
The two arms of my
uncle wrapped around me
Pulled me out of
the dark depths of death drowning below
He had seen my
mother’s panic and did not need to hear her cries
To know her child
was below
So, the angels and
demons would have to wait a little longer
Before my soul was ready to
take
This poem is from the book : Petals Falling
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