Oh! To daufuskie - dah first key - poem - Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry

On Daufuskie, the invaders relish the Indian history - trading lives like coon hides - the mounds, the greens of Arnold Palmer"s house islanders seek to find the fare to take the ferry to Hilton Head or Savannah in 50 minutes

On Daufuskie, the children wear heeled shoes down unpaved roads, gray layers of dust cover their jerri-curls this was once their world their forefathers built boats harvested shrimp cracked crabs chopped sea-island cotton through the late '50s

International Paper its giant bulldozers its singing chainsaws cut tall oaks felled cypresses chemicals poisoned the oyster beds and money the minds of the invaders politics brought Melrose Development Corp. and now the path to the beach will close and Haig Point is the joint but it no longer belongs to the people and half the school is invaders and all the teachers invaders and the ferry cost to the mainland doubled without warning.

And there is struggle but soon there will be no one to hear Mama Lillian's song no one to carry on.

On Daufuskie there is war and the people are not winning.

COPYRIGHT 1993 African American Review
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