THE GREAT MIGRATION 

by Beverly George      

             

                                                                          

Blacks burst into Northern skies like six million

Monarch butterflies, Lawrence captured them

On canvas driving wagons, riding freight trains

Traveling on foot

 

He recorded relentless migration

Escaping cypress swamps,

Bottomlands, Charleston chagrined seaports

Where slaves were auctioned on blocks

 

So, they came,  they came full of prayer and purpose

To St. Louis, Cicero

Steelworkers, domestics, sharecroppers

Pullman porters moved North for better schools

Better pay, a better reason to hope

 

He illustrated lynchings in gut wrenching ochres

Rendered race riots in jagged white lines

Striking the foreground

Nights on fire

 

Oh, say can you see luminous yellows,

Muted mahoganies, custom made blues drawing us in?

Can you hear hope as it rushes upstream

To spawn new generations despite dismal rains?

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Beverly George is a poet who lives in South Carolina. Her chapbooks on Black History include First Light (Pure Thoughts Publishing, 2022) and Amazing Grace (2025). Her work has appeared in The Pettigru Review and the South Carolina Bard Anthologies. She studies with Hollie Hardy online and participates in SNS, an online monthly open mic. Her family lives in S.C., N.Y. and MN.