Before I begin, congratulations to Kay McGriff, the winner of last weeks giveaway! She will soon receive a copy of David L. Harrison’s AFTER DARK. Enjoy!
My husband, Bart, and I traveled to Charleston, S.C. last weekend for a family wedding. It’s a beautiful, gracious city, full of friendly people. As a tourist, I felt caught between two worlds, the Antebellum South and today.
If you enjoy old things, there are many to see in South Carolina, beginning with the trees. Everywhere are lovely live oak trees with long spiraling limbs and hanging Spanish moss. This live oak has a name, “Angel Oak” and is said to be about five hundred years old!
Slavery was presented honestly at tourist sites. Charleston was the center of the domestic slave trade after the importation of slaves was banned in 1807.
We visited the Slave Mart Museum on Chalmer’s street, where visitors see and hear the disturbing details involved in selling men, women and children.
We saw the brick and pastel antebellum houses on a walking tour, then drove to the Middleton Place, a plantation 30 minutes away, where the horses, goats, pigs, and the chickens below have a very leisurely life, as the wealthy Middletons who once lived there did.
An alligator lounged fifteen yards away by a stream, but I didn’t get close enough to snap a shot.
At this upstairs Confederate Museum in downtown Charleston, curated by the Daughters of the Confederacy, I saw small and dusty uniforms that were made for the physically smaller men of that time. I saw rifles, buttons, bullets, letters from soldiers, army cots, etc. The mission, according to a woman I spoke to, is to pay respect to Confederate soldiers. Small Confederate flags were on sale for a dollar. I didn’t buy one, though I paid eight dollars to get in.
Robert E. Lee had his own special room:
Before I left, I rode past the Mother Emmanuel AME Church, a beautiful white church which was the site of the horrific shooting in 2015. Out of respect, I didn’t take a photo. The church is a not far from where the Democratic debate was about to take place on 2/26/20.
In the Charleston Market and in museum gift shops, beautiful, sturdy and expensive sweetgrass baskets were sold. This is a Gullah tradition, originating in West Africa. When I saw the skill it takes to make one one of these baskets, I understood why they cost so much. At a park gift shop, a woman was weaving a basket and she inspired this poem:
WHAT IS IS WORTH? Charleston is the second most preserved city in the world, next to the Vatican, the tour guide said. See the pastel and brick antebellum mansions with side porches to catch cool breezes, built by slaves. See the plantation mansion and gardens, the two man made lakes shaped like butterfly wings, built by slaves. See St. Philip’s Episcopal church- The towering corinthian columns private family pew boxes, were rebuilt by slaves after the fire in 1835. Today, a black woman weaves sweetgrass baskets like her ancestors, at a gift shop, her face impassive. She bends and sews the stiff uncooperative grass, just so with her needle, securing each row one by one till the basket is done. Tourists pass by whispering about the high cost of her work. © Janice Scully 2020
Thank you, Karen Edmisten, for hosting Poetry Friday today. Please stop by and check out her post about February and the poem she is sharing this week.
Thank you, Janice! I look forward to reading and sharing After Dark. The reviews have been amazing. It looks like a beautiful trip to Charleston. We went there on vacation a few years ago and saw many of the same sights. My favorite tour was the Gullah Tour, which viewed the city and its history from an African American perspective. Those sweet grass baskets are beautiful. We brought home a very small one, which hangs as an ornament on our Christmas tree.
Enjoy the book. Yes, Charleston is such an interesting place. Next time I go maybe I buy a basket, if I can decide on one!
Thanks for highlighting your visit to Charleston. It is indeed a fascinating place (visited years ago). Your poem was very moving; I could picture everything you described, especially the basket weaver. Beautiful work!
Whoa — those last two stanzas. Powerful poem, Janice.
Thank you so much, Laura.
Thank you, Laura!
Janice, I like the presentation of your post. It reads like a travel guide to Charleston, a town I would love to visit. Your poem provided another insight into the old town and tourist thoughts.
Thank you, Carol. I appreciate that.
Thanks for this post about Charleston. Such a mix of beauty and sadness. Shame right next to honor. I guess humanity is like that, but we often don’t recognize or appreciate the irony.
Thank you so much, Laura.
Thank you, Karen.
Wow Janice! I really like your poem. Thank you for sharing all this.
Thank you for reading!
Hi Janice,
Your post and thought-provoking poem are a mental treat as I make my late-night dash around Poetry Friday blogs. I was just talking with a friend whose son has moved to Charleston, where he had gone to college, and she encouraged me to visit. It is a city of history for sure and pure contrast that exists so many places. I signed up so I will get your blog postings via email! Yay. Looking forward to reading more.
Thank you, Janet. Nice to hear from you and thanks for subscribing!
Janice, that repetition and then the gut punch of the ending. What a powerful poem! Thank you.
The high cost of her work. Yes.
Adding my voice to the chorus of admirers — such a powerful and affecting ending!
Love the way you weave together all the complicated sights of Charleston–and that ending is terrific! I’m reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Apparently that basket making is a tradition of more than one culture.
That sounds like a book I might like. Thanks for your comments, Buffy.