FREEDOM'S GHOST: Priscilla's Prayer

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Poem Commentary

This poem is written about a 10-year old girld who was kidnapped by slave traders in Africa in 1756. She was taken to Charleston, SC and sold to a family there. She spent the rest of her life as a slave.

FREEDOM'S GHOST: Priscilla's Prayer

Freedom's Ghost
Priscilla's Prayer

© 2005, Alana Thevenet

Oh how I long for my freedom
and yet all I know of it
is the ghost of my childhood
and of that, I remember so little.

The memories fade
as my time in this strange place
becomes weeks, months, years.
And my life does not belong to me
for I belong to the master

Freedom.
To feel the sun of my homeland
on my face and
the soil beneath my feet
To hear the voices of my mother and father.

Freedom.
The word is my prayer.
It is a ghost that visits in my daydreams
and in the dark hour of midnight
as I lay awake and try to recall
why I am here.

The time will come, I pray,
when the ghost will take me back
to the place I knew as a child.

And I will remember.
And no more will I be a slave.
Oh God, let freedom's ghost
come for me today.

Amen.

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grimkedrayton commented on FREEDOM'S GHOST: Priscilla's Prayer

01-22-2011

This poem expresses the anguish of an enslaved girl taken away from her familiar surroundings, knowing there is no way back. The language is direct and unambiguous. You can almost hear her speaking to you. Will you respond? How will you respond?

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) Greek philosopher.

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HIGHER MATH 2
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