Flying Free

can you hear
that tinkling on the wind......?
        like the furtive below-deck rattle of chains
        on slave ships of the past

I planted a spirit tree
near the bayou,
where ghost-wails and lamentations
moan every full moon:

         mothers crying for their babies
         children sold for dollar bills
         grandmothers, weeping for them all

In the clink-clink-clink
of late summer afternoons,
hear determined spoons digging tunnels
out of captivity,

        the echoing lament of souls
        longing for freedom

In the fiery blaze of four p.m.
when the light turns the colour of fried butter
look closely; see souls emerging
from all the shining bottles

       to the muted clink-clink-clink
       watch the rise of age-old spirits
       finally flying free


for Shay at The Sunday Muse

Old southern legend tells of bottle trees, where evil spirits were said to get trapped in the bottles, keeping them away from the houses; they were destroyed by the morning sun.  When the wind blows, and a sound emerges from the botles, it was said to be the moans of the evil spirits.

African slaves began hanging bottles in trees in the American south in the 17th century. They usually chose crepe-myrtle trees, significant to them through Bible references, representing escape from slavery and freedom.

As I protest captivity,  I took poetic license and had good spirits freeing themselves from the bottles, rather than being trapped.