They told me I wasn’t no good
Just like they said you was too broken to fix
We was the younger brotha’s, the not-rights,
I would sit next to you in the shadows of the ol’ shed
An’ you would lean over, creakin’ and groanin’
Your wooden joints rotting away
Like apples left in the sun too long.
You listened good,
I could tell you all my secrets
Good and bad:

When I was young,
I stared at that strawberry patch growin’ behind you
And ‘splained how Ma never wanted another boy
That “ya don’t need two for the plantin’”
And that she was “too old to do all that real work all alone”.
You watched from the bank
While I skipped them round stones
Knee deep in that muddy river
An’ told ya that Papa- Masta’ Freemen- didn’ want no
Black boy for a son
Let alone two.

When I was just a boy,
I came runnin’ back behind the shed
Dirtien’ my Sunday best as I scrambled out to you
And hollered out three verses of
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
An’ you grinned and clapped
With your ol’ crumblin’ oars
As I told you what Reveren’ Samuel told me
That “God don’ see no color!”
And that “Ain’t nobody more powerful than the man in the sky!”

When I got a little older,
I would turn ya over and open your tired eyes
To show you the scars
That crisscrossed over my back like trains
Swollen purple an’ red, they screamed at you
‘Bout the time I “couldn’ work fast like the others”
Just like I “couldn’ run fast enough from that kitchen withou’ bustin my hide”.
You was patient
As I cried into my shirt
But you didn’ have an answer on
What made them white folk so special
As to tell me what to do an’ what to say an’ how to act
When their same blood ran through my veins.

When I couldn’ find no place t’go
That night Ma died
I carried her to you, trippin’ over my feet
You an’ me, we buried her behind the ol’ shed
You grindin’ your cracked wooden teeth
And me chokin’ on the truth
How tha’ godless man
-Masta’ Freemen-
Couldn’ take no time in his day to see
That my Ma was gone
An’ that he was the only parent I got left.

When the tears stopped comin’
You tol’ me to go find my brother
To tell him I had been fixin’ you up
Behin’ the shed
Plank by plank
An’ that I was gonna leave with you
Go lookin’ for who knows what
Up that muddy river
I tol’ him he could follow me if he want,
But that he could never tell
That we had gone an’ sailed away.