Home Again

Blue and white and terrible

a place of so much life and yet it

carries so much death

My people died on the ocean

I enjoy the waves, the sand beneath

my toes, the foam settling near the shore

But my people died beneath the waves

They fought for their freedom

Fell to their deaths

swam through currents of rip tides

Just trying to make it home again

But they would never make it back

At least not for many generations

There are four hundred years between

when my ancestors left

and when I walked back through

the door of no return

I returned

across the ocean

I returned

to that same beach

They were made to march to

through jungle

and woods

through pavement

and cities

through villages

and dirt

They walked to the ocean

were packed into hulls of ships

and crossed that ocean

they dived in that ocean

For they attempted to escape and

thrive in that ocean

And that same ocean

is what connects me to my past

to the land of my ancestors

And as I swim in the ocean

I touch the same waves

the same foam

the same salt

the same corals

that my ancestors once dived into

looking for freedom

And then me

Four hundred years later

across the same ocean

free to smell the same salty air

dip my toes in the same sand

and float on the same waves

my ancestors once called home.