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• 1 2018-10-24T21:02:00-07:00 Imagining Africa 13 plain 2018-10-25T09:29:26-07:00

  by Jessica Covil Listen

  The land is more than soil

  Has to be. What are you otherwise?

  —you, the uprooted

  who have lived without that soil for generations

  but still feel its hold on you

  stronger than the slave ship.

  You dream the land like a lover, believing

  she is not the same without you.

   

  Say it like a prayer.

  You fall on your knees

  and lift up your request

  to multiple gods.

  You are unsure which will listen.

  Christ is the cross you would die on

  but Christians enslaved you.

  Iron in the palms of your hands

  or encircling your wrists

  in the blood that is both yours and His

  —that forced inheritance.

  Or maybe this iron was yours to begin with

  That unbreakable stuff you’re made of

  making you stand up straight

  like Man does

  up strong

  like a Man does

  You write this in so many stanzas

  you say it in your sleep

   

  White men have planted false doctrines

  in your skin

  cut row crops in your back

  like you are the land

  submissive

  like you are the soil

  dark and fertile

  The means of production.

  Modernity feels like

  you are a walking plantation

  Look at what Man does

  naming you Woman

   

  So you take back God

  like a coup

  Strong-arm Heaven

  to prove you still have fight in you

  and meekness is a virtue

  but it’s tiresome waiting.

  God’s Might is a wonder,

  wonder if God might intercede on your behalf

  might send down a host of heavenly angels

  with some swords you could count on.

  You wonder, too

  if we are all God’s children,

  why it’s just you

  who’s treated like an unruly thing

  in need of discipline

  the white man playing Father

  pretending at salvation.

  They bury you in the earth

  just to call you

  dirty

   

  So you reclaim “Father” too

  and call it Africa

  wanting to bear its name

  wanting to have some other inheritance

  than the one you’ve been branded with

  bastard

  Wanting to have what’s yours

  to take back the soil,

  you stolen from it

  it stolen from you

   

  And yet

  the very name makes you throw your head back

  jaw drop when you call on

  Afric-ah

  ah

  ah

  ah

  you say it like a sigh

  overcome with desire

  but you don’t like feeling weak.

  You decide

  she must be the one

  in need of saving

  Imagine

  she is waiting

  stretch your roots down deep

   

  It is hard to

  pin down

  what it is about her

  that slips through your fingers

  Who could imagine

  soil this free.

  Claimed by so many men

  and never paid for,

  must be easy.

   

  But how to explain

  the way you wake up

  with her scent tickling your nose

  feeling the way she curves

  to meet this body of yours

  wherever it falls

  How you just want

  to settle it

  once and for all

  to make her worthy of the pleasure

  but finally, to please her.

   

  From this side of the ocean

  it is always a paradox.

  The way the tide pulls you violently in

  and gives you back

  the waves embracing the shore

  if only to recede again.

  This desperate act of love

   

  makes you cry out:

   

  This is light

  yes

  This is love

  yes

  This is loss

  yes

  yes

  yes