The Black Woman

The story of the black woman
Is not found on the tarred road of the white man
She has her story in the sands of the muddy road that leads her to the river at cockcrow

The story of the black woman
Is not found in the beguiling make-up kit of the white man
She has her story in the traditional turban of her land where true aesthetic lies

The black woman
Is not afraid to walk in the dark
Her heart is a valley of love
Where her husband is the most treasured
And her family,she holds in esteem

She does not sing the reggae from the yonder
She does not dance the piano that accompanies it
Her soft waist shakes to the drums and conga of her land
Where she dances ekombi with passion

She is not modernized
For modernity meant slavery
She buries her hand in the red oil with her local yams
She needs not the fork of the white man
For as the fork pierces the yam
So did they pierce the traditions of her land

She is a vine
She is a bride who brings home kolanuts
For he who brings kola brings life
She does not bring the wine from the yonder
For in it was the diabetes of its masters

Sing me the encomiums of the black woman
A mother who gathers her seeds around the fire at night to tell folktales
A woman who feeds her home with her hoe
She is proud of her bare-footedness
For the well designed shoes that came from the yonder was only a modernized form of heat
The heat which killed the breeze of her land
And rendered them rainless

Let me be the dirty black
Let me live a black
Let me die a black
For BLACK is where beauty lies
It is where true stories lives.

For the love of Negritude.