Homecoming/Namesake/Salve/Sankofa
by AMELIA SIMONE HERBERT
in Spring 2021
Tafari Melisizwe, Adaa Festival, 2012
Homecoming
835 had a lilac tree in the yard,
sometimes purple, sometimes blue,
perfume drifted through the back windows.
Late-bloomer promising summer,
gatherings in endless sun,
corsages for proms, weddings, or just because.
A home for bees, birds, and all sorts of buzzing things,
it blossomed without fail every May,
and no one knows how or why since
the daily grind of work and school and paying bills
did not allow for the tending of trees.
It probably still blooms now
defying foreclosure, disaster, demolition
and neighborhood flips,
standing proud and beautiful in our place,
refusing to surrender home.
Toni Morrison said
“Home is a peculiar kind of thing,
there is a yearning in it…”
A yearning
that sounds like Nina Simone
hypnotized by lilac wine.
Her voice carries me back
to sheltering under the tree
while Wild is the Wind engulfed the house.
Remembering for the first time,
suddenly the scents and sounds land
with force that makes me question,
is it memory or daydream?
The other day I learned
that bees are endangered
because they have lost their way home.
Pesticides attack their nervous systems
impairing memory and communication
causing a kind of dementia,
collapse and chaos in the swarm.
They simply forget the flight path
from the flowers
back to the hive.
Namesake
Dear Ganghee,
The tourist catalogs say
Amelia’s an “enchanted island,”
“a charm from sunrise to sunset,”
“a gracious southern belle,”
But, amidst glossy photos of
newlyweds riding horses on twilight shore,
balding men toting golf clubs on the green,
museum docents reenacting colonial scenes,
and carefully restored Spanish missions,
I don’t see our faces.
I don’t see the picture of Eva and Rosa Triay with their dairy business in 1887,
or Vincent, proud owner of the first bottling company in Florida,
or Matt, with his cleaners right on the main strip of town.
I don’t see Everett grinning next to his winning catch — a lobster longer than his torso,
or Serena with her 1957 Cadillac purchased from tailoring business profits.
I don’t even see A.L. Lewis, founder of Afro American Life Insurance Company
who bought 200 acres for American Beach — “Black Beach” to us,
who lured Zora Neale Hurston, Hank Aaron, Joe Louis, Ossie Davis, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and more to an oceanfront where they could play and relax.
And I definitely don’t see MaVynee, the Beach Lady,
her ancient locs longer than her whole body,
ropes wrapped in a pouch at her side,
sleeping on the dunes every night in protest of developers,
until she died.
Beautiful Old Town plots passed down from foremothers
of backdoor babies that sealed manumission papers,
plots that sheltered generations never lured by northern freedom dreams
who forged their own on shrimp boats and small business,
plots now occupied by liberal whites
summering in paradise,
sunbathing on a stretch of sand
in a master-planned community
named The Plantation.
Salve
Vicks was the only drugstore medicine in the house.
Mom rarely placed trust in the store-bought,
but the bottomless tiny blue jar stood alone
in the arsenal of homemade potions.
When asthma interrupted sleep,
she lathered the ointment on our chests
and carefully smudged a dab beneath each nostril.
The robust aroma of eucalyptus
pried stuffed sinuses open,
clearing passage for breath to flow.
I cherished those nights
smothered in vapor rub,
cooling sensation slightly stinging my eyes,
lying in bed feeling like a peppermint,
ushered into dreams
by menthol balm and a mother’s love.
Sankofa
Never doubt
every transforming
is a reclaiming,
every imagining
a remembering,
every leap forward
a journey back…and within.
Never doubt
the presence of all
who yielded us.
We carry them,
traumas and triumphs.
We inherit much more
than their burdens.
Never doubt
you can go back
and fetch it.
Retrieve the fruits,
the harvest of survivors.
Learn stony roads trod,
unlearn pitfalls and patterns.
Never doubt
a return is a propeller.
Attune yourself
to the ancestral chorus —
It is not wrong
to go back for
what has been forgotten.
Amelia Simone Herbert is a writer, learner, and teacher who loves words and their power to create worlds. She writes poetry to awaken forgotten corners of her consciousness, unblock places of memory, and unlock hidden reserves of intergenerational wisdom. Her chapbook Contagious Acts of Freedom (2013) is a short collection of poems and memoirs that celebrates freeing acts of expression amidst the ubiquity of boxes and constraints. She also contributed poetry to Black Lives Have Always Mattered (2017), a collection edited by Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets. Her prose has been featured in Cultured and CRWN magazines. Amelia proudly hails from New Jersey. She is a graduate of Duke University, a PhD candidate in anthropology and education at Columbia University, and a Visiting Instructor of Educational Studies at Colgate University. Learn more about her at ameliasimoneherbert.com.