not me, or the white man running thisa way,

guns blazing, burning up everything.

Can’t see nothing through the smoke,

can’t breathe, choking like I got two hands

around my throat.

Je-e-e-sus, Je-e-e-sus.”

“Brother,” I whispered, and he said, “Hush,”

as a hot wind rustled the leaves

and the white man ran past,

screaming something about niggers and too much—

“What’d he say, brother?” I asked,

but he turned away.

“Lookayonder,” I heard him say,

just as a loud crack and a popping sound

got mixed up in my head.

When I climbed down that old tree, I said,

“Brother, are you dead?”

He just stared at me,

then outta nowhere someone grabbed my hair.

Daddy had braided it for me that morning

and tied a ribbon on it

and said, “I’m warning you don’t take it off,”

and I didn’t, but it come off anyway,

when the hand jerked too hard

and got a fist fulla red ribbon

and I started running myself.

Wasn’t nobody else but me around after ’while

in the dark, back in the back of somebody’s house,

I mean underneath it,

where a dog was hiding too.

It was a hound dog with two pups.

You know how mean a new mother can be,

but she didn’t growl, or nothing,

just gave me the eye

and went on back to nursing

and didn’t do nothing when I got real close

and stroked her fur and closed my eyes.

I woke to her sighs.

The pups’ eyes weren’t open yet,

but they moved their heads

when I started to crawl outta hiding,

but then I heard crying, I heard a shot

and moved on back

and got close to the dog and those pups.

I knew from that moment on

I was hound Mary’s daughter

and I would never leave.

3. THE RESCUE

I seen trouble coming from a long way off.

I seen it this morning in a bubble of blood

when I cut my finger on that cup I broke.

Nobody had to tell me about it.

I could see things. I had second sight.

Got it from Mama, a full-blooded Cherokee.

“Son,” she’d say, “you got one foot in Heaven

the other in Hell

trouble gonna find you

wherever you dwell.’

It’s gonna come in fire.

I know secrets I better not tell

and you will too, when the time comes.”

Here it is—

a Negro boy running fast as he can

a white man behind him

with a noose in his hand.

My daddy was Negro too.

Should I do something ’cause halfa me

could also swing from a tree?

I don’t know what to do

til I remember Mama telling me

about the long walk

when so many died on the Trail of Tears.

She said the old folks told her

nobody could believe Andrew Jackson

would make them leave their home, but he did.

The white man takes what he gives.

He’s got two faces and both of them smile