IN memory of The Poem, sung By Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit”

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

In the beginning, of the long dark, frosty night. I stood watching the angelic clouds, beautiful angels hold gatherings-surroundings of the same dark city. Deeper and deeper- angels brought us safely across bridges and stoic mountains holding our dark past within its grooves.

We over came the hatred of ourselves. The hatred of our skin’s- bitter fruit. Strange things, “scented Magnolias sweet and fresh” the eyes of the south, the burning of the mouth and “blood at the root.” Hold out your tongue, chile,’ don’t cut it out.

The soul of black bodies, the soul of white folk, marching,

“Jim crow” behind us,

all the while,

the cross before us.

and we made it,

some places, we bore the heat of the chain,

some bore slavery at its shame, and we made it,

somebodies’ son, somebodies daughter, “swinging on the poplar trees”,

the road are swollen, some, no road at all.

Still, we made it

and all the while, there were “splinters, tacks and boards torn-up”.

We never stop, we never sat down.

and now, my dear chile’, with the road before us, we’ll hold on,

we” hold on chile’.

kindness sister Krissy Mosley