Traveling Mercy

Traveling Mercy navigates the journeys of a Black woman from rural South Carolina. Her travels transcend time as she encounters history, nature, and grief. She sits with the eldest residents before her birth, with the first ancestor who came to these shores, with her parents through their marriage, and through her own loneliness in the wake of their deaths. Planting as she harvests, this book is a lament and a love story to survival.

I. Departures 

Traveling Mercy1

A Re-Minder3

Insomnia4

When you write your mother's obituary,5

Mercy8

Mudskipper10

Thread11

Time is Everything12

Flowers for the Living15

Seashells16

Her Who Peopled We17

Scaling18

The Road to Being Born19

II. Arrivals

Insomnia23

Woman of Steel24

Survivor Call & Response25

The Moon & Me26

What Marriage Is27

Fried Chicken-Neck Dinner29

Dear Mikey,30

The Setting Up31

My Father's Shakespeare33

S'posin35

Leaves Like Prayer36

L.J.'s Last Will & Testament37

Lynches River, A Legacy38

How to Die at a Wedding39

What Marriage Is40

White Shoulders43

III. Returns

Insomnia47

The Road to Being Born48

the poet is thirty49

Alice & Bessie50

Ars Poetica51

Taking Flight53

Green Thumbs Elegy55

Dear Ma & Da,56

The Okra57

Notes 58

Acknowledgements60