"In memory of Eliza and Emily"  
Twelve Years a Slave, Eliza Berry's life marked by cruelty, a tragedy of slavery.


She rose to lower heights as she plucked the cotton with  
                               her bare hands
Stooped over she pulled the cotton from the bolls, fine cotton
                               that it was !  
Twelve years of slavehood, her daughter taken for her beauty
                                  was separated from her youth...
Haggard, hollow-eyed and filled with sorrow she worked soberly
                                     for she would not be sold, she was not for sale !
Eliza wept tears of grief but, there was nothing she could do,
                                       her daughter had been taken away from her.
Come back—don’t leave me—come back, mama, was her last cry
  until distance intervened and then all was finally wholly lost.

Foot Note: Eliza never saw or heard of Emily. In the cotton field, always and everywhere she was talking to her.  Only when absorbed in that illusion or asleep, did she ever have a moment’s comfort, afterwards.