Rattlesnakes

The young folk came from Nashville,
from the Bronx, and Carolinas.
To the land of rattlesnakes,
of cotton,
of wildflowers,
and tomato sandwich picnics.
To the land of burning crosses. Lynchings.
Crickets playing Mississippi blues.

The 1960s Delta. And my dad,
raised in a Brooklyn housing project,
nervous, poor, but proud,
felt a calling to Atlanta.
Then to Freedom Summer’s promise.
Hattiesburg, where mosquitos
were never short on blood.

They were young women. Young men.
Black and white together,
filled with fear and courage.
In cars. On buses. Walking miles
to sign folk up to vote.
My dad was beaten in his back
with a police baton in Jackson.
Many times arrested.
Chased by the Klan
one magnolia afternoon.

They were workers.
They were students.
Singing songs
of freedom,
praying grace
would rise up
from the clay.

He’s dead now.
Like so many of the rest.
I think about him as a boy,
listening. Ear to his transistor.
Rooting on Pee Wee Reese
and Jackie Robinson.
Hopeful the Dodgers would
take the Series in ’55.

I think about the hissing
nine years later.
Rattlesnakes warning danger
if he stepped foot
where he didn’t belong.
The cypress and pecan trees.
The grasses and the stars.
History’s grit turned into songs
that if not sung and sung,
will lay untold and dormant.
Stuck like old truck tires
in the Mississippi mud.

*

Sarah Mackey Kirby is the daughter of Ira Grupper. Her father was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and lifelong civil rights, disability rights, and labor rights activist who passed away July 23, 2024. Like her dad, she loves to write. She hopes this poem honors him. And all the people who walked through this hell to effect change.