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Blues Spiritual for
Mammy Prater |
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by Dionne Brand |
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On looking at the
photograph of Mammy Prater, an ex-slave, |
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115 years old when
her photograph was taken |
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she waited for her
century to turn |
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she waited until she
was one hundred and fifteen |
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years old to take a
photograph |
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to take a photograph
and to put those eyes in it |
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she waited until the
technique of photography was |
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suitably developed |
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to make sure the
picture would be clear |
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to make sure no crude
daguerreotype would lose |
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her image |
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would lose her lines
and most of all her eyes |
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and her hands |
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she knew the patience
of one hundred and fifteen years |
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she knew that if she
had the patience, |
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to avoid killing a
white man |
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that I would see this
photograph |
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she waited until it
suited her |
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to take this photograph
and to put those eyes in it. |
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in the hundred and
fifteen years which it took her to |
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wait for this
photograph she perfected this pose |
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she sculpted it over a
shoulder of pain, |
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a thing like despair
which she never called |
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this name for she would
not have lasted |
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the fields, the ones
she ploughed |
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on the days that she
was a mule, left |
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their etching on the
gait of her legs |
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deliberately and
unintentionally |
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she waited, not always
silently, not always patiently, |
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by the time she sat in
her black dress, white collar, |
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white handkerchief, her
feet had turned to marble, |
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her heart burnished
red, |
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and her eyes. |
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she waited one hundred
and fifteen years |
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until the science of
photography passed tin and |
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talbotype for a surface
sensitive enough |
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to hold her eyes |
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she took care not to
lose the signs |
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to write in those eyes
what her fingers could not script |
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a pact of blood across
a century, a decade and more |
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she knew then that it
would be me who would find |
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her will, her
meticulous account, her eyes, |
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her days when waiting
for this photograph |
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was all that kept her
sane |
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she planned it down to
the day, |
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the light, |
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the superfluous
photographer |
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her breasts, |
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her hands |
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this moment of |
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my turning the leaves
of a book, |
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noticing, her eyes. |
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