*My vision of contributing to healing the planetary consciousness may just consist of me healing my body and mind of inter-generational trauma and letting the rest follow. We’ll see where it goes.
Jimmy had been sitting over by the porch that day when one of them came around. The man asked my Jimmy, “Who’s that white woman over there?”
Mamie was taking care of little Jimmy just like his mama. Jimmy said, “She ain’t no white lady, sir. She ain’t nothing. She’s just my auntie.” He was around about eight.
A. M. Davis
I have spent a lot of time angry. I have reason to be enraged as I know rage doesn’t serve me. It blocks my good. To combat that rage, I try to understand the incidents and circumstances that enrage me. Sometimes I hear my ancestors telling me about themselves. Some are frightened and confused and don’t know why they can’t rest. Some seem to know why they speak.
I am a storyteller and the following story has strong, possibly upsetting imagery, some that I have been holding since I was a small child, images I would not have experienced if I had a choice. I was not there physically, but I somehow received transmissions from from family.
Jimmy had been sitting over by the porch that day when one of them came around. The man asked my Jimmy, “Who’s that white woman over there?”
Mamie was taking care of little Jimmy just like his mama. Jimmy said, “She ain’t no white lady, sir. She ain’t nothing. She’s just my auntie.” He was around about eight.
They come back around to the house at night saying, “come out of there you white looking n—- bitch!” They was outside in the yard yelling, “you look just like a white woman. We gone teach you about how to be a n—-.”
And that’s how they started bothering her again. She was married and living there with her husband. He was old and his parents had been slaves so he didn’t know nothing except to just sit there.
She say, “I ain’t coming out!” one of them come in the house and brung her outside. After that, when they came around, she just come outside of the house.
When they was messing with her, they liked to say, “We gone teach you how to be a white woman, you hear?”
And she started up saying, “I ain’t nothing, you don’t want to mess with me,” but they still all went at her bad and roughed her bad. After all of that went on, she’d sit up in the house for months before she’d start talking again.
Her husband had wet on himself when they had came inside of the house, and my little grand baby seem alright, but he was in the house seeing all of this go on. I could tell he wouldn’t be too good after that. The first time they came around, he had followed his auntie outside and they put him there on the ground, he being just eight, and one of them put a boot on his head and said, “Look at this little n—–. Hey look at him. You look just like a little white man. Look how this little n—– look just like a little white man. If you say something bout what you saw, boy, we gone cook you and eat you, you hear me you little n—-?” My little grandbaby said,
“I can’t say nothing cuz I didn’t see nothing!” and they let him up.
Mamie said, “you run on in the house,” and Jimmy said,
“I can’t leave you alone out here Auntie! I need to help you!” because two of them was messing with her.
Mamie screamed at him, “now you just go on in the house, Jimmy!” You can’t stay out here!” and he ran into the house before they did something to him, but I knowed he wasn’t right after that because some of his mind went off into another direction to where it had been going.
Anyway. I’m Ann Marie Davis. I have green eyes. And I’m healing myself.
There is a Song Called Winter Into Spring
Sometimes he sits
in his big chair.
Sometimes he imagines
that he is transformed
into a church bell
that is waiting
to be rung.
And sometimes the morning sun
pushes the frost
away from the rose bushes
and mown grasses
in the time before the babies stir.
And sometime after that,
the breath-like gods of blue and white skies
turn winter into spring.
Piano notes alternate
with the chirp of birdsong.
First a note,
then a cord,
then the chirp.
And then the breath of the sleeping child.
And then a note.
And then there is a riot of chirps.
Then a melody.
I’m raising funds to write a novel. Please watch your feelings. I don’t understand crippling guilt. I know that it’s not helpful. Look at any guilt. As you watch it, as you watch yourself watching it, it lessens. Then, help out.
The reason that I am saying all of this is because you will read on my funding platform that I am living in a temporary shelter (now, I’m in a hostel, but it costs more than I take in). I lost my place of residence last January. That’s all I’ll say because my healing internalized oppression consists of me ending over attention to the feelings of the cultural majority.
Poetry volume available for purchase here