A Poem by Ashley M. Jones: ‘Within the Starting, There Was the Phrase’

For Joe Minter, the African Village in America, and 1504

And when these white-sailed ships
piled us collectively, cargo within the hull of hell,
the phrase rode with us, our tongues
anointed with the ability of God.
When the lash discovered our language,
once they mentioned don’t learn or write,
our tongues had been nonetheless gilded with a heavenly phrase.
We nonetheless sang that holy tune,
even on this unusual land. Even right here, God spoke
to us and thru us.
Our palms made language
and earth grew to become fruitful,
and tune grew to become prayer,
and a folks made do
with the bones and scraps of america.

And we grew to become messengers
with every sin pitched in opposition to us—
in Birmingham, there was God
within the toes of the marchers
and within the starched collar of Fred Shuttlesworth,
within the curls and dimples
of these 4 women,
within the boyish pleasure of Virgil and Johnny
earlier than their tune was reduce quick.

Messengers, all of us, talking the phrase
God left us on this weary land.
Messengers with the phrase as their spear,
messengers talking life into every brick,
every crop, every sew, every guide we made.

And there’s a messenger on Nassau Avenue
with the phrase clear and robust on his tongue,
a warrior for the Lord, a servant of the phrase.
And the ancestors discover his brown palms
and anoint them, and steel turns into message;
wooden and paint interpret scripture,
the wind blows by, and there’s God.

At first there was the phrase, and the phrase stays.
We’re a residing tongue—
the phrase is a torch and we tote it proudly,
what you hear is our collective soul,
what you see is love strolling, God’s blueprint,
ours is an unstoppable tune.

This poem is from Ashley M. Jones’s new guide, Lullaby for the Grieving.