Spring, 1862 Dear Daughter

African American Review, Fall, 2004 by Gale Jackson

Spring, 1862
Dear Daughter,

   You asked in your last letter what it feels like to be
      free so I
   send you cape jasmine blossoms and the story of how
      I found them.
   At the end, though at the time I did not know it was
      the end,

   of my own tribulations, crossing over, out of the
      mouth of slavery, on a fugitive ship, I met a kindred
      spirit--cold, bedraggled, thin of body as would be
      one so long in running and deprivation.

   Together, below deck, on that samaritan sloop stealing
      us both
   into the night, we talked. She was also from our
      town--believe me, these were not easy confidences
      then when a slip of the tongue

   Could mean death--and she was now traveling by
      my very name. She called herself Harriet Jacobs, like
      a talisman, because she said she knew that "Harriet,"
      so long gone, must surely be free.

   We were an odd pair--two dark women dressed as
      men rank with the sweat of fear and every lonely
      night it takes to get to that place where you say your
      own name is the one you have taken.

   And she had taken mine. I'd been hiding for seven
      years, below a false floor, watching the world from a
      hole in the wall, barely able to stand at on my own
      feet, never

   Going back but scared, scared girl, to go forward until
      that moon
   light pushed me into a sailor's arms, and on to water
      daughter, on to water, that washed away their shame
      where I lay this body

   Down and I met that fugitive woman who rocked me
      like the waves.
   Some say it's Canada, some say it's across the Mason
      Dixon line, and some say it's any place north of
      where you left, but for me

   She was the place called freedom. Arm in arm we climbed
   from our berth, strangers, namesakes, stumbling into light
   and the heady perfume of a seasons bloom.

   They told us it was cape jasmine. I enclose some.

   With All My Love.
   Your Mother

Harriet Ann Jacobs
1813-1897.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861).

Gale Jackson is a poet, librarian, and cultural historian who received an NEH for her work in Griot tradition. Her publications include the books Bridge Suite and Khoisan Tale (Storm Imprints, 1998). Her epic poem "Medea" and her collection Suites for Mozambique are forthcoming in Spring 2005. She serves on the faculty of Goddard College and as storyteller-in-residence at The Hayground School.