- My hybrid body shakes and
- sways and
- rocks and
- communicates
- With the blur
- of wrinkled hands
- of hardened hands
- With wrists still sore and scarred
- after manacles
- and cuffs
- and chains
- gunpowder and bullets
- and cross -
- shaped swords
- That traversed the Atlantic
- Calling at West African stations
- And palm-island studs
- of the golden Antilles.
- And like the antelope skin
- That captured the clatter and the thunder
- of the hoofbeat
- of the herd
- in the African plains
- And the rumble and the thunder
- of the jungles
- and the falls
- of the Amazon
- I, stretched and taut,
- Have taken the beating
- and the pounding;
- But my spirit
- and my voice
- Will not be quieted
- Will not be muffled; for
- I AM the hollowed
- hallowed
- haloed trunk
- and the hills and the vales
- and the streams and the soul
- OF AFRICA
- and the banks and the waters
- and the heart and the mind
- OF THE AMAZON AND THE ORINOCO
- and the wrinkled calloused hands
- dragged across the Atlantic
- and dumped on the golden
- studs and shores
- OF THE CARIB -
- BEING WATERS.
- Yet, you must know,
- I was here before all that,
- I was here before -
- before
- the paler faces came;
- And organ music
- Jukebox blaring
- Hymns sung to mary
- and the quean's english
- shall not quiet the
- Drums of my Fathers
- Rumbling in my bones,
- Drums of my Fathers
- Capturing my mind,
- Drums of my Fathers
- Recapturing my soul, or the
- Words of my Fathers
- Tumbling from my mouth.
- Drums of my Fathers
- of my Grandfathers
- of my Ancestors
- Drumming in my psyche
- Souls of my Fathers
- Drum! Beat!
- Beat On! Drum On!
- AND ON!!!
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