Polished grains, seed pearls

opalescent white against

my white palm. Winnowed,

milled, pounded—husk

and bran and germ all

rubbed away—seeds denatured

ungermed to starch not seed

to feed and feed and feed.

“Cherokee blood” family would say,

marking my uncle’s rich and easy tan,

my grandfather’s broad face—

we descendants of

the rice people of the south,

the lowlands, the sea islands,

people of Savannah, Charleston.

Carolina Gold:  If I take

this rice into my belly

will I taste in the passage

over lips, tongue, back of teeth

the dry bitter remnants,

the dark parts, the bran, the germ—

what was milled and polished white

into what was to be forgotten?

I turn each mouthful on my tongue

before swallowing , hoping

to taste some sign of heritage

to name and to know the

power of pain my ancestors

held in white hands–power to consume

land, labor, the ancient knowledge

of the first rice people

people of Senegambia their knowledge

of the planting and flooding,

the winnowing, the pounding,

the baskets and the boards,

the soil and the sweat—everything

that was taken I seek to take

into my body and the salt of grief

salt of blood salt of the wide Atlantic

to eat, swallow, trying to remember all

that I have never known,

the dark germ, the winnowed husk

let it nourish the hidden germ

the dark seed once denatured,

polished to whiteness

and forgetting. Let each grain

teach my tongue to speak

this rift of history to speak

the debt of blood of gold to speak

to the broken kinship  

among the people of rice.