Natasha D. Trethewey

A compilation of poetry addresses the complex history of the American South, offering a lyrical tribute to the Native Guard, one of the first black regiments in service during the Civil War and paying tribute to the author's mother and her illegal interracial marriage.

Native Guard

Amar

You can get there from here, though there's no going home. Everywhere you go will be somewhere you've never been. Try this: head south on Mississippi 49, one-by-one mile markers ticking off another minute of your life. Follow this to its natural conclusion dead end at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches in a sky threatening rain. Cross over the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand dumped on the mangrove swamp - buried terrain of the past. Bring only what you must carry - tome of memory, its random blank pages. On the dock where you board the boat for Ship Island, Someone will take your picture: the photograph who you were will be waiting when you return.

The road going home was pocked with holes, That home-going road's always full of holes; Though we slow down, time's wheel still rolls. 

The sun is high and the child's shadow, almost fully beneath her, touches the sole of her bare foot on concrete. Even though it must be hot, she takes the step; her goal to read is the subject of this shot-a book in her hand, the library closed, the door just out of reach. Stepping up, she must look at the two signs, read them slowly once more. The first one, in pale letters, barely shows against the white background. Though she will read Greenwood Public Library for Negroes, the other, bold letters on slate, will lead her away, out of the frame, a finger pointing left. I want to call her, say wait. But this is history: she can't linger. She'll read the sign that I read: You Are Late.

Some names shall deck the page of history as it is Written on stone. Some will not. Yesterday, word came of colored troops, dead on the battlefield at Port Hudson; how General Banks was heard to say I have no dead there, and left them, unclaimed. Last night, I dreamt their eyes still open - dim, clouded as the eyes of fish washed ashore, yet fixed - staring back at me. Still, more come today eager to enlist. Their bodies - haggard faces, gaunt limbs - bring news of the mainland. Starved, they suffer like our prisoners. Dying, they plead for what we do not have to give. Death makes equals of us: a fair master. 

Before the war, they were happy, he said, quoting our textbook. (This was senior-year history class.) The slaves were clothed, fed, and better off under a master's care. I watched the words blur on the page. No one like a raised a hand, disagreed. Not even me. It was late; we still had Reconstruction Whe to cover before the test, and-luckily- three hours of watching Gone with the Wind. History, the teacher said, of the old South - a true account of how things were back then. On screen a slave stood big as life: big mouth, ass bucked eyes, our textbook's grinning proof-a lie my teacher guarded. Silent, so did I.

Native Guard quotes

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