Resurrection
By Artress Bethany White
Nat Turner’s Rebellion took place in 1831. He and a band of fellow enslaved persons took the lives of over 50 people, including planters and their family members
What if Nat Turner’s Rebellion had succeeded. Maybe he would
have birthed a trend, the way protests now bloom viral after black
bodies are rendered fallow. Would people still root for a Nat
who craved more sumptuous fare; to be free sweet in his mind
like cane-cum-refined sugar his hands once cultivated,
or the way a cotton shirt reminded his fingers of the pluck
of white bolls he hated. Today’s revolt, to challenge a knee
in a neck where it’s summarily planted or slow a bullet’s trajectory,
John Woo-style, before it landed. These thoughts rise up
like discontent-lined hymns to shorten bondage, planter eulogies
sown, hoed, and flowering amid sonorous darkness.
A love of jesus grew Nat’s courage skyward in lofty sway
from bondage to freedom. To wit, one has to reap carefully
to glean the long-buried dead. Dismay mourns
the insurrections of the past while fearing
the bitter uprising never quite going down as planned.