A WAIL STILL MOAN

From Accra's coast the Zong set sail
A coffin ship of sorrow's call
And in the hold, in darkness thrown
Fathers and sons were pressed as one
Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Fon

The year was ending, fading slow
Seventeen eighty-one, years of dread
Four hundred forty souls restrained
Chained to the damp, the bitter pain
Their eyes held nothing but the coming dead

The captain, lost within his route
Confused and blind with greed's cold lie
Called human lives but weight and load
And chose to cast them to the cold
One by one beyond the rail
Into the deep where the Sun don't shine

In the ocean's blue, a wail still moan
Carried like a scar across the stone
Lives tossed from the Zong, just cargo lost
A wicked crime that broke the human soul

In London courts where shadows crawl
In halls where cold ambition lied
They made their bargain, broke the law
Six hundred coins for every death
For every soul they claimed as lost

In the ocean's blue, a wail still moan
Carried like a scar across the stone
Lives tossed from the Zong, just cargo lost
A wicked crime no empire's voice could ever still

Yet from the sorrow rose a flame
Sharp, steady in his just acclaim
And Equiano, freed from chains
Two distant men who dared transform
The lingering ache, the bitter sting
Turned it into the voice that sings