The Four Hundred Year Cloud

Poetry by Olivia Meadows

image courtesy of Gary Marvelous

The blood has dried but the leaves still cry. Never mind my pie while telling lies to the nation purposely withholding my reparation, deciphering it instead to private corporations. Sleeping eyes awaken you’ve been had, you’ve been bamboozled noose around the neck, “I can’t breathe” blood dripping from new America tree leaves. The ancestors said it loud,

I am Black, and I am proud, the revolution is televised, and Black voices ring out loud, yet behind her crown of liberty remains the stench of the 400-year cloud.