Sweets by Linda LeBrane

A slave woman whose name was Stone

Sang rivers into meandering

Sang birds into nesting

Sang cotton into blooming

Gladdened the hearts of the hopeless.

White Mr. Harris slipped on down

To the crude cabin, poorly built

He brought sweets in his pocket,

Left them for Stone on the table

When he finished with her.

Many months the pile of sweets grew

And Stone no longer sang

Only moaned low and hurt while sweeping.

A baby girl cried into the night

Brown, but not black like Stone.

She was christened Rock and her Mother

Held and rocked her many years

Past baby years, past toddling years,

Stone rocked her into young womanhood

Praying that rocking would protect the child.

One night she heard Mr. Harris come

Lay sweets on the table next to Rock.

She heard the stifled screams, the after tears.

She slipped silently out her cabin door

Down to the river’s edge

Roped herself to the limb of an oak

Hung herself over the babble of the river stones.

Rock grew into a mountain

Disguised herself in bonnet and apron,

Took Mr. Harris to town in the buggy.

No one knows how it happened.

Neighbors found him face down in the river

Beyond the bridge, beyond the bend

A one inch hole in his neck- drowned

In his own blood.


At the grave on the hillside

All the slaves were given the day to mourn

Songs of jubilation masked in minor key.

Rock stood among them.

One apron pocket full of sweets

One pocket secreting a two inch knife

Wiped clean of her own blood.

She picked up her mother’s song and sang

Into the summer wind with a smile.