Black Poetry : Braiding Sonia's Hair

Hunter

Well-Known Member
REGISTERED MEMBER
Apr 3, 2001
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[dedicated to Sonia Sanchez]

It was a quarter to 3:00 a.m. and I needed Sonia Sanchez to rescue the sleeplessness in me. She handed me her book of poems and told me to "SHAKE LOOSE MY SKIN" and catch the verses flying in the air. She whispered her "DEAR MAMA"
to my weepy ears and I listened. I twirled my fingers in and around her hair. I needed to feel the texture...touch the freedom of her unruly locks.

So hard to hear her whisper really...standing in the middle of that verse. The ground feels like somebody's Mama has died. How many more Mamas will be sacrificed... for the sake of death standing in sad spirited poems.

Again...and again...that impatient phrase just keeps asking me for..

"My First Real Poem...my first real poem...my first..."

Sonia can you hear me? I would speak louder if you were not around

"My first real poem was....an island"

Nassau island still lives inside my belly. I give birth to that first day...over and over
and over again. That first day my seven year old eyes stitched up my Momma's hemline. Daddy beating up on Mommy and the neighbors were always watching us. We lived...the circus that came to stay family sort of way...

And nobody told me that the poetry would bring me pain

I get so tired Sonia...so tired...wish I could just stay this way...stay...and re-train your locks...such a shame really...such a shame...that they forced me to carry a family of six on my back this way.

Hold your head still Sonia...please just let me corn the rows...let me release each strand in my own way...yes...you can coin the phrases...

That second poem was....the sound of screams...my own...Momma beating me.

Momma was a Mathematician-magician and she taught me how to do arithmetic with the lights out. I learned how to suffer silently and how to multiply...my pain...to arrive at solutions to slave equations. I felt only a fraction of what they must have been through...on plantations.

I am sorry Sonia but sometimes...I must talk in rhythms under rhymes..but that's just because I don't want him following me....shhhhh....hush yo' mouth Ms. Girl and hold onto the hair comb quietly.

That's how he first fingered me

That third poem was....a black man. I didn't even hear him coming.

He was light brown eyes at seventeen. I see-ed him crying once before. I thought it was safe to lay down beside him cos' his shoulders were shakin' and I thought they were cryin' out for me. I blanketed myself in his insecurity. Fifteen years later the sleep ended and a shiny, bald-headed, black man arose. I could see my exaggerated reflection off the top of his dome.

And

Those eyes...those eyes...fluttered open and told me that he hated his Momma's womb. Then he borrowed her hands to slap me and I hated her sharp fingernails too...

And you say you want that fourth real poem Sonia?...That fourth poem?...Why? Girl your hair is nearly done?

No...don't ask me to feed you that unfinished biography...of my one true beloved son. Suffering so long Sonia...so long...suffering...

The unwritten lines and miles and miles and miles...to travel...just to reach him. He lives over there now. On the island. No..it's not Nassau...I made sure not to upset his stomache with the neighbors.

Yes I tried really hard Sonia...really hard..but you see...now we are both homeless

And yes...

This is his "First Real Poem..."


Hunter
All Rights Reserved
 
My dear sister

The first reading of this masterpiece held me captive, so much so I didn't dare move for several minutes afterward. I could see you and Sonia...and I could hear you speaking...the unspeakable details of a life lived, in my opinion, undeservedly. But ohh, my dear sister, as I sit here with tears streaming down my face...trembling as I type...it is so clear that only you could tell this story. Only you could sit us down and make us, shake us free of our own dark tangles... with your skillful fingers...
with your healing ink.

(Your obedience to the voice of God is a testimony to me.)

Thank you

a
 

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