
Ghanian coffin in the African Burial Ground National Monument in Manhattan. CC BY-SA 4.0
who now pleads with the ancestors
seeing with naked eyes the gates of the dead
who now sees the impossibility of life
finding at last the answer to the question
and wonders how it could all be so ugly
if it be under the power of god
and wonders how it could be so petty
despite the promise of colour and glory
now asks of the ancestors
illumination of the path to the end
now despairs with the ancestors
the lack of light before
now understands, like the ancestors
the nature of the prison
as with imploding ego and drowning despair
the scales fall before the gates of hell.