Let this song dance the dance
of my ancestors. Let it find feet,
let feet find dust, let dust find wind.
This song carries the pregnancy
of the past inside the rhythm
swaying like palm trees paying
obeisances to the sea.
Sometimes it rises, sometimes it falls—
a tempo older than moon & star,
harmattan & rain, warp & weave of time.
It was this song that dandled
my forebears on the lap of conquest,
that fed empty spirits when monsters
rose from their fertile nightmares.
O a song of the gods it was & now
it dances to the rhythm of my soul.
Now it carries my longing
like a wound across the scar
of our loving.
See how my eyes blink at the duets
we had, the symphony that held
the world in our grasps.
Come darling, did I not whisper
your dreams within the dance?
Did the fire not answer back
in its primordial glee?
Let this song dance the dance
of the mad, the crazed fever
of the unhinged.
Let it be said that I prophesied,
spittle flying into the wind.
Let it be said that my feet
found dust, dust found wind,
wind found cloud & rain touched skin
to earth & birthed new things.
Aye, let it be said the song was
strong in me & I was the grand
composer that carried the naunced
worship from heaven to this glorious
earth, this earth of your warm body,
this earth of grass & stagnant
lakes, children in their piping
voices & the old wandering mind
of the aged waiting for a god
to come & be gentle into them.
Prophesy body birthed in sin!
Call your ancestors with gin
To answer for their crimes.
Gather the feathers of flight;
Let them prayers.
Gods let this song,
this dance of dust & wind,
cloud & rain, skin & earth be.
Amin.
