A Poem About Ann Atwater by Crystal Simone Smith

For #WomensHistoryMonth we commissioned local poets to capture the spirit of Durham women.This is Ann Atwater by Crystal Simone Smith.
Radical Reckoning
“God I could not solve all the problems, but I’m on record with you that I tried.”
-for Ann Atwater
Poverty is to partake in tallying
all that’s owed, unaccounted
past due bills, their unpaid debts.
It is eight leavened loaves
until a flour sack empties
to become a daughter’s dress.
It is what rises in you while
living poor in a homeland
your ancestors made wealthy.
You have no name for it,
surviving on domestic work
single mothering in a house
that leans into the street
and wind moves through.
You tally up the housing “improvements,”
they tally up the rent increase.
You tally up moonlit prayers
gone unanswered, an endless
measure of black madness.
You tally the times you listen,
that you forgive your enemies
of freedom, of passage,
of human happiness.
You know suffering, how your work
is a calculated survival that gives
the suffering meaning. A tally that comes
to this radical reckoning.