THE AUCTION BLOCK

by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

The city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, has removed an auction block marking the spot where African Americans were once displayed and sold as slaves. —CNN, June 13, 2020

Blackened gold
Smolders where the slaves are sold.
Shackles lacerate each limb;
Children whimper unconsoled

And taste fear.
White-washed faces laugh or leer,
Peer at teeth and backs stripped bare.
Captives stare at auctioneer,

Gaveled god,
Passing sentence with a nod,
Smiling when his skills inflate
The going rate for unshod

Doltish brutes.
Chattel’s role is buffing boots,
Groveling at each command,
Plowing fields and plucking fruits.

Evil’s hold
Burns the human heart with cold.
Only embers banked from pain
Melt the chains of blackened gold.


Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a poet and writer who taught in American community colleges for more than a decade. Her tanka and bardic verse in the Celtic style have been published extensively in Europe, Asia, and North America. She is the author of With No Bridle for the Breeze: Ungrounded Verse (Shanti Arts Publishing) and The Language of Bones: American Journeys Through Bardic Verse (Kelsay Books). "The Auction Block" is an example of a Rannaigheacht Ghairid.

OUTCAST

a rhupunt

by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

A Palestinian demonstrator with a slingshot is seen during a protest. CREDIT: Mohammed Salem, The Washington Post, May 14, 2018. “ZEITOUN, Gaza Strip —  Israeli forces killed 58 Palestinians at the boundary fence with Gaza on Monday, local health officials said, a level of bloodshed not seen since the most violent days of Israel’s 2014 war in the territory.” —The Washington Post, May 14, 2018.

When dreams draw near
And specters leer
I face my fear
And call the crone.

By night she stands
On sun-scorched sands.
With folded hands,
She weeps alone

For wasted lives
Cut short by knives
Where hatred thrives
On blood and bone.

I search her face
For signs of grace.
“Show me the place;
I will atone.”

She bows her head.
“To mourn your dead
You must break bread
On mount of stone

With open palm.
Present the balm
Of peaceful psalm
Where thorns have grown

On Dome of Rock.
You must unlock
The hearts you mock
In undertone.

You must unwrite
All deeds of spite
As Sarah might
Had she but known.”

Resolve holds strong
Till evensong.
I right no wrong—
Good will has flown.

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a writer, poet, and editor who taught in community colleges for more than a decade. Her tanka and bardic verse in the Celtic style have been published in England, Scotland, Canada, Indonesia, and the United States. An avid swimmer and an enthusiastic fiber artist, she currently lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA.

THE WEIGHT OF WATER

A Rhupunt by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

The white man buys
With gold-plate lies.
His honor dies
On rocks that stand.

With greed, with guile,
Pale fists defile
The streams with bile
That poisons land:

“Hail, bottom line!
For leaks, a fine;
Let squaws drink wine!”
We understand

Their appetite
For oil will blight
Our sacred site,
Yet they demand

We yield this ground.*
Despoilers pound
The earth, and mound
Its bones and sand

With metal paws.
The hungry jaws
Of drill that gnaws
Devour our land.

Their serpent’s bite
Pours black of night
Through earth despite
Our protests and

Appeals to law.
So from the maw
Of death we claw
The dead, command

Their ghosts with dance,**
Add spear and lance
Of spirits’ stance
To human hand.

We string each bow
With words, strike blow
In court; the snow
We will withstand.

Foes agitate
With stones of hate;
Lakota wait
On rocks that stand.

* Current plans call for the Dakota Access Pipeline to pass under the Missouri River less than one mile upstream of the Standing Rock Reservation.  The Lakota have protested on the grounds that the project will contaminate their sole source of drinking water and disrupt their sacred lands.  



**By 1890 the Lakota faced starvation as a result of the U.S. Army’s systematic decimation of the buffalo, their primary food source. Members of the tribe began to practice the ghost dance, which was said to harness the spirits of the dead to fight on behalf of the living.  Sitting Bull was arrested for refusing to stop this practice, and the resulting conflict led to his death and the subsequent massacre of his supporters at Wounded Knee.

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a linguist, writer, and editor who taught in North Carolina community colleges for more than a decade.  Her tanka and bardic verse in the Celtic style have been published in England, Scotland, Canada, and the United States.  Recent work has appeared in Quarterday Review, Society of Classical Poets Journal, Bamboo Hut, Skylark, Atlas Poetica, Halcyon Days, and Peacock Journal.  She lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA.