In the twilight of my life, I came
to the history of indigo: color
and currency, “a length of cloth
in exchange for one human body.”
The secrets to its cultivation known
by Africans. “In the 1700’s profits
outpaced those of sugar and cotton.”
The first American flag stitched with
indigo-dyed cloth. Wave a flag sewn
by shackled fingers while the blue
bruise thickens, seeps its way into today,
stain of the past slumps in the corner
of every classroom, pain threaded into
every pledge, each anthem we sing.
Now, 250 more years around the sun,
we’re waiting for the arc of the moral
universe to catch the freedom train,
but the station is empty, streetlights
have begun to fail, first one, then another,
shadows lengthening while our ears
press the rails, listening for the thrum.
My country tis of thee, sweet land—
it’s twilight here in the heartland.
the indigo light dims and lingers.
Author’s note: Source of the poem’s quotations: Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World by Catherine McKinley.
Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in anthologies and journals, including Sheila-Na-Gig, SWWIM, Gyroscope Review, Rattle, The New Verse News, and the New Ohio Review, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road(OU/ Swallow) received the WCONA Book of the Year and was long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Poetry books include Household Gods, a chapbook, on Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, and Incomer, released in 2026 on Shadelandhouse Modern Press.
