Amber fields

by DeLana Dameron

a story quilt reading for L. Teresa Church

Rhubarb red streaks black nights.
Women walk amber fields down country roads,
Feet dusted tobacco brown.
Come home. Cook country ham, ground pepper.

Walk those amber fields, women.
Wrap in leopard prints spotted with sun.
Come, cook country ham, ground some pepper
Wipe the burgundy berry juice from my lips.

Wrapped in leopard prints spotted with sun,
Cotton-picked woven cloths, come, create wax batiks
With the burgundy berry juice—
Batiks from England, imported to motherland

For cotton-picked woven cloths. Wax batiks:
Kente, kente, emblem black, they want kente
Batiks from England to import to step-motherland,
Our banners fly from across the equator.

Kente, Kente, emblem black
Wrapped around women’s feet dusted tobacco brown
Who wear banners from across the equator
Where rhubarb red streaks those blackest nights.

DeLana Dameron, a native of Columbia, SC spends her days in Chapel Hill, North Carolina translating the world around her—forever trying to marry the historical and the literary. She is a Cave Canem fellow and a member of the Carolina African American Writer’s Collective. She adores letters and can be reached at delanadameron@yahoo.com.