I.
Wildflowers grow in the most barren places.
Boulders balance on the smallest of rocks.
Clara Brown, her ancestors left on some African shore,
Her family ripped from the fabric of her heart,
Sewn into another field, anonymous property,
While the lark bunting spun freedom’s song over blue columbine.
Boulders balance on the smallest of rocks.
Emancipated, manumitted at the death of her master,
Mandated to leave Kentucky, lest her freedom be set free,
Her mandate: to find her scattered family.
Once housecleaner as a slave, now housecleaner for hire,
Cleaning her way to make her freedom pay.
Clara Brown, her ancestors left on some African shore,
Hired on a wagon train of men bound for gold,
For her the gold was to find her youngest daughter.
She cooked in Colorado for prospectors and miners.
She cooked in abundance accidentally on purpose,
And gave what was left to the territory’s homeless.
Her family ripped from the fabric of her heart,
Now scattered like remnants in the torn quilt of the nation.
Clara opened a bakery, a chapel, and a laundry,
While praying and waiting for the wildflowers to bloom
Visible and beckoning, like sun—washed linen in the wind,
Hotter than gold fever, more brilliant than the gold.
Sewn into another field, anonymous property
No longer, the family planted themselves
While Clara sought their loosened threads,
Watching from the store, from the altar, from the clothesline,
Launching in Central City Colorado’s first laundry,
At fifty cents a bundle, making her freedom pay.
While the lark bunting spun freedom’s song over blue columbine,
Clara Brown earned her money then returned to Kentucky,
Seeking family she did not find, but bringing strangers she did,
Paid their way to Colorado, telling them to make their freedom pay.
Found her daughter in Iowa, together returned to Colorado
As the boulders found new balance amid the lark bunting and blue columbine.
II.
Wildflowers grow in the most barren places.
Birth son of Eirinn, adopted son of the Waxhaws
From Tennessee frontier, newcomer to a planter's life.
Victorious hero over the offensive British in the Battle of New Orleans,
Villainous destroyer of the defensive Creeks and Seminoles
Challenger of corruption? but are you, and who are you?
Boulders balance on the smallest of rocks.
The first US President to pay off the national debt,
But what a spoiler! No happy ending,
Sorrowful termination on the bitter Trail of Tears
For Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, and again the Creek and Seminole.
Paternalistic and perilous, strange rescue through removal.
Clara Brown, her ancestors left on some African shore--
Andrew, might a less distant one be slaving in your Tennessee fields?
Perhaps you can search when you bring Lyncoya home,
Lyncoya, the sole Creek survivor, Lyncoya, the now orphan babe.
Did you rescue him because you were once an orphan too?
Or did he rescue your conscience from a bloody drowning?
Her family ripped from the fabric of her heart,
Harriet, the one called Moses, escaped twice, the second time alone,
A new conductor, led and leading by the North Star through winter's longest night.
Daughter, sister, mother, wife and widow,
Abolitionist, nurse, scout and patriot,
Her train never jumped the railroad track.
Sown into another field, anonymous property
No longer, with emancipation grounded in law,
She sowed new seeds into the wounded field
To become blossoms of women's suffrage.
She designated yet another tract
To be a home for African-American aged.
While the lark bunting spun freedom's song over blue columbine
Harriet was honored on postage stamp and asteroid
And as she dances in heaven
Perhaps she will see her countenance on currency
With her back to Andrew's and his back to hers.
The common, the uncommon, the extraordinary that is America.
III.
As the boulders find new balance amid the lark bunting and blue columbine
At fifty cents a bundle, making her freedom pay,
Hotter than gold fever, more brilliant than the gold
Giving what is left to the territory's homeless
Cleaning her way to make her freedom pay
While the lark bunting spins freedom's song over blue columbine.
At fifty cents a bundle, making her freedom pay.
She, the laundress finishes forty bundles
And her customer hands her a twenty dollar bill.
On one side is Andrew, on the other side is Harriet.
Clara's hands hold both faces of the currency,
All three and all who follow were and are America.
Hotter than gold fever, more brilliant that the gold
Shines freedom's sun on an emerald meadow,
Where sun-washed linen dances in the singing wind.
Andrew and Harriet and Clara together
Pull a linen from the line and spread it
For a feast in that meadow.
Giving what is left to the territory's homeless
A territory no longer, but the homeless are still there
In the land of the free, beloved sovereign republic.
The questions, the wounds, the scars and the boulders:
Monuments of hope from soil becoming rock,
Wave-tossed, eroded, slammed into wisdom.
Cleaning her way to make her freedom pay,
Digging his way to make his freedom pay
Are the laborers, men and women.
The free unkempt frontiersman faces the landed elite.
The escaped slave faces her master and frees the still enslaved.
The freed slave faces her employer and leads the newly free.
Wildflowers grow in the most barren places.
Boulders balance on the smallest of rocks.
Slave and master no longer in that feast in the meadow,
Challenger, entrepreneur, friend and compatriot,
The vision enables the scribe to change past to present,
While the lark bunting spins freedom's song over blue columbine.
