Plantation Country

An order that confirms a license
 A beauty that disguises violence
 And, oh, we were complicit in
 Our soft, insipid silence
 The language that defines the landscape
 The land descends into the sea
 And try I might, I can't unwrite
 The world inscribed in me
 You asked me did I know what I thought to be mine
 I said all I had bought and built and stumbled on in time
 And though I did believe the valence of my lines
 A feeling lurked within, unnamed and undefined
 I did find comfort in the dream of simple pasts
 Or found accountability too tough to task
 It's my good choice I make
 A painful path not taught to take
 A winning streak I best not break
 I'm broken all the same
 Inherited with my complexion
 Little mirrored and no reflection
 But my unmarked identities
 Make claims at recollection
 Stories that were told to me, oh, myths of modern ancestry
 Within a fence kept carefully, they made my world make sense
 Or was it history books? Were monuments just all it took?
 The way the land retained its looks in preservation tense
 We see these lines go sanitized, revised, returned again
 Same stars aligned on different flags, on welcome center pens
 Oh, oh, Natchez and oh, Destrehan, oh, riverboat casino band
 Oh, sugarcane field 'cross the land around plantation homes
 The images encode aggressions
 In answers that evade the questions
 False distance, fake nostalgia
 And their calm, coercive lessons
 The planters' sons, they make the laws now
 The tourists disembark the planes
 To go and spend their money
 On a dream that nothing's changed
 An order that confirms a license (The tourists disembark the planes)
 A beauty that disguises violence (The planters' sons, they make the laws now)
 The language that defines the landscape (In answers that evade the questions)
 The land descends into the sea (The images encode aggressions)
 Inherited with my complexion (The land descends into the sea)
 Little mirrored and no reflection (The language that defines the landscape)
 The images encode aggressions (An order that confirms a license)
 In answers that evade the questions (A beauty that disguises violence)