South

By Natasha Trethewey b. 1966 Natasha Trethewey

Homo sapiens is the only species
to suffer psychological exile.
—E. O. Wilson

I returned to a stand of pines,

bone-thin phalanx

flanking the roadside, tangle

of understory—a dialectic of dark

and light—and magnolias blossoming

like afterthought: each flower

a surrender, white flags draped

among the branches. I returned

to land’s end, the swath of coast

clear cut and buried in sand:

mangrove, live oak, gulfweed

razed and replaced by thin palms—

palmettos—symbols of victory

or defiance, over and over

marking this vanquished land. I returned

to a field of cotton, hallowed ground—

as slave legend goes—each boll

holding the ghosts of generations:

those who measured their days

by the heft of sacks and lengths

of rows, whose sweat flecked the cotton plants

still sewn into our clothes.

I returned to a country battlefield

where colored troops fought and died—

Port Hudson where their bodies swelled

and blackened beneath the sun—unburied

until earth’s green sheet pulled over them,

unmarked by any headstones.

Where the roads, buildings, and monuments

are named to honor the Confederacy,

where that old flag still hangs, I return

to Mississippi, state that made a crime

of me—mulatto, half-breed—native

in my native land, this place they’ll bury me.

Source: Native Guard (Mariner Books, 2007)

Biography

Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the daughter of poet, professor, and Canadian emigrant Eric Trethewey and social worker Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough. The daughter of a mixed-race marriage, Trethewey experienced her parents’ divorce when she was six. She subsequently spent time in Atlanta, Georgia, with her mother and in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her father. Encouraged to read as a child, Trethewey studied . . .

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