Moonlight tells

Moonlight tells,

so we shut our eyes

tight, tight no white,

to show the crunching

closer feet where we hid.

Still

not shaking.

Knowing if we did

the leaves might rattle

and they might look down.

They're leaving!

They're leaving,

not seeing us in this

hole covered with limbs

surrounded with bushes.

Still we wait, to be sure,

not coming out

until we hear the wagon

and Ole Gil.

He pulls away the limbs

and everyone is out fast,

into the wagon, and under 

the heavy dirty canvas. 

Hidden,

in the wagon moving North.

I grabbed the fear that made me

want to scream and crammed it

deep into my apron pocket.

Stiff and small I made myself,

and I  fell asleep there,

and woke to the shouts

of Freedom as we reached the North.

I held tight the quilt

with it's handstiched secrets,

sewn cabins and orchards

beneath a shiny Northern Star.

And proudly I  gave Gil

my grandmother's quilt

as he returned without rest

searching for family in the South.

Family

he found and approached

would invite a cousin to supper

and be given a quilt

and whispers in the dark.

Brave ones,

would come and follow the quilt

to places where railroaders waited

to send them station to station

Northward to freedom's cry.

Fear,

would enslave some,

and the quilt would be left,

just wash hung out to dry,

for Gil and slaves running North

© 2012 Tamera Dobbins