I don’t know whether to be ashamed of my/our past or forgive it because of our collective ignorance. You can’t easily step out of your inheritance. I wrote this poem after my nephew David discovered that what we’d taken for granted was not true.
Slavery There was a brick that sat on the hearth of my grandparent’s house. It was laminated with a photo of the old homestead and my grandmother’s writing alongside that said it was made by slaves and that the deed was signed by John Quincy Adams, from whom we are descended, is how she wrote it. Recently my nephew traced that long-held truth down in a few minutes on the internet: Adams’ signature appeared on all deeds, since he was Secretary of State. My grandmother was a member of D.A.R. which meant she could prove a direct bloodline from the American Revolution. She liked having arrived before the rest. She liked being linked to Adams, true or not. She liked having had slaves, because it meant there was money. She was not a bad woman. She was kind in a slightly imperious way to the maid Gussie, whom I loved and am directly descended from, in my heart. I followed Gussie all over, with her vacuum. We were living the life we were given to live, ignorant as we were of basically everything. You could say we were slaves to our ignorance. It is no good looking back to say shame on us, we should have been better. I have a photo of the laminated brick. I have the yellow bowl I helped Gussie mix pineapple sugar cookies in. They’re Mr. Simpich’s favorite, she’d say. She called him only that, ever, after many years. She called my grandmother “Miss Susie.” Everything was precariously balanced that way and had not toppled yet.