Black Beauty’s Song
I sing on top of mountaintops
I sing at births and weddings
I sing at jazz clubs
in Hip-hop clubs
Reggae fests and
Auditoriums
plays and musicals
parks and supermarkets
bathrooms and bedrooms
I sing of into the night talks and 5 a.m. runs and walks,
of holding hands while walking through the mall
Of tender back of the neck kisses and gentle ear caresses that mimic it all
I sing of black on black love that stood through thrashes and rapes
A love that stood through hound chases and over the broom disappointments
A love that floated to the top of the sea, above tarnished ancestral bones
A love that passes through prison cells and ghetto walls
A love that crawls over mountains and dances through high
grass
I sing in your ears babies
On my knees baby
I sing of good mornings and restful nights
Red roses and bottled wine
Lingerie delicacies
Secret fantasies
Loud love and hushed moans
I sing of hope and resurrection
I sing of peace and friendship
I sing of warmth and comfort
I sing of kisses and tears
From blue-black to the lightest of the beige
From nappy to the nappiest
From the tallest to the shortest
From the thickest to the bony
I sing Black-Beauty’s Song
Loud and soft
Hard and tough
Black-beautiful-black
I sing, I sing, I sing
Because of my Mama and my daddy
Because of my grandmother and grandfather
I sing because of my daughters and sons
I sing because I got too
I sing because God told me too and because
Oshun blessed me too
I sing
I sing through tears of remembering and heartache from understanding
the pain of yesterday that creeps into today
but, I sing of rebuilding, mending, and feeding black bellies
of planting and watering fields of black hearts and souls and making them
healthy and whole
I sing Black Beauty’s Song and it sounds so sweet.
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