BY LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR
Clothed with your colour which is lifewith your form which is beauty! In your shadow I have grown up; thegentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes. And now, high up on the sun-bakedpass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon,I come upon you, my Promised Land,And your beauty strikes me to heartlike the flash of an eagle. Naked woman, dark woman Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre rapturesof black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouthSavannah stretching to clear horizons,savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind’seager caresses.
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, mutteringunder the Conqueror’s fingers. Your solemn contralto voice is thespiritual song of the Beloved. Naked woman, dark woman Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on theathlete’s flanks of the Princes of MaliGazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on thenight of your skin. Delights of the mind, the glinting of redgold against your watered skin. Under the shadow of your hair, my careis lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes. Naked woman, black woman,I sing your beauty that passes, the formthat I fix in the Eternal, Before jealous fate turn you to ashes tofeed the roots of life.
The Ethiopian Herald February 19/2023
