Twelve Years in Georgia

I feared we were alone.
We left our homes for a strange land.
We were welcomed with care and love,
But we stayed strangers.
When we were seen, they blessed our hearts
And left us strange.

In music I am not alone.
Hopes and dreams cross generations, oceans, and tongues.
I sing my new hymns.
I bring the words from other times,
I bring the tunes from other lands,
To mine.

I can stay a stranger if that’s my call.
Whiteness may be the state religion,
But I don’t have to lend it my good skin.
I can hold no laws sacred
Until they leave no rich and no poor,
Noone bound,
And don’t stop at the rights of men.