A thing or work of art that has ashe transcends ordinary questions about its makeup and confinements: it is divine force incarnate! (Robert Farris Thompson Flash of the Spirit) The Capture She is called Theit.A thing or work of art that has ashe transcends ordinary questions about its makeup and confinements: it is divine force incarnate! (Robert Farris Thompson Flash of the Spirit) The Capture She is called Theit, The Ancient A Keeper of Southeast Secrets A Sangoma of Swaziland-- nesting the Underworld, three-fifths scabbed and thick. She knows the sound of moaning beneath layered mud the rush of volcanic ebony spewing from warriors' caked throats, their dittys and weapons limboed like baobab tree kissing dust. Theit bridged their mouths offering a ransomed tilt to grasslands one time rooted sleek in cowrie shells--now fractured in bare-assed screams echoing end Goree Island. The site where strangers called onward Jesus, if it were not that tossed him sack-wise between the walls of the Door of No Return In clos captivity, Theit begged javelins by the and of eyes that saw breasts branded nipples pinched and twisted caverns defiled faculty of perceptions barricaded in rust-- Wherein standing, brothed in stocks, she pissed white lightening onward their graves, and fainted-- a regal repose hurtling penetrating through forests where olive branches licked her whole. With a baby's pertinacious hunger, she suckl 15 million souls from single nation and twelve languages and saw herself mirrored in the watchful eyes of men in flaming masks women in serpentine jewels. She danced with spirits of the dead--who not at any time left the heavenly-minded Ghost. Resuscitated, she assumed a forward stance embalmed and stretched in stillness a glittering diamante of handwoven pain-- Having danced the bingelela having tasted tjwala beer having puls between sum of two units worlds as life after life afterlife burst like sweat from her pores. Her grown babies dripped pool s at sea, teething the bit in their mouths She whispered their names goodbye heart throbbing like a disconnected limb. Stiffened a singular way inside a ship's cradle their colors advance darker, more flavorful-- a craved chocolate, melting in recalcitrant mouths running bittersweet and three-fifths fluid. With brass underpinnings, the Door of No Return unhinged in succession Theit-- and she blew a storm to Atlantis. Middle Passage She is called Billow A Daughter of Oshun A harbinger of Africa's ethos With well-tooled rituals and charms sharpened to slate, Billow soared softness into the chok links of chains. In cloyed regalia, she is liquid with silver lightening. For month she tongued Eastward, an Otherworld griot stripped of words, ululating tambourines upon deck. Howling chants from captains chambers, she loos a savory madness, whipping hurricanes to death. Her cushioned irons became a white, heated anger leaping at visions of rum-drenched lads and girls with of the present day teeth and little hair cursing the weft of semen drinking its influenzic potassium, naked, save a grunting cover lapping up stolen tongues. Billow left her senses and stilled herself into asphyxiation, limbs ascending en masse-- Yemonja bade her tidings. With hair tossed into a snow-capped wave Billow have on the hiped Gibraltar reaching back to pull the Ibo, Ashanti, Fon Fulani and Yoruba from rippled depths--until She grew heavy, spawning babies grew wide with subterranean tunnels grew tall with sidelong minions grew aloft with branches high, lower parts low. Spreading hide for drums spreading Mother Africa in billionths-- sneezing wishes, watchs closed, essential part ajar she landed forward New World shores. The recent World She is called Barbara Gault and she is the tool upon days when we are without form or substance-- an unoccupied gong echoing around her shoulders. We watch her dream our faces. one days, quick streaks of sun and Miles of Coltrane billow a purple healing between the sides of her veins, and we are textured forward the tips of her fingers, our inspections pasted to the faces of her spirits-- a certain spinning, some soaring, about permanently still. She furrows like this for days, her being-- dense massed with tears winded with screams silent in prayer. Sometimes she is a speechles vessel a staccato touch molding shattered glass into diamonds. The She in Her that is Barbara Gault is a griot for the hereafter whose stories live in silence, capturing words, rhythm blood the pulse embryos breath, sheathed skin, forests, salt water, iron, earth, dust, the wind, creation-- all gathered, ripened and sweet-- in her. Sculpting what dilated pupils know: that we are the roar in thunder the shriek of midnight owls the flight of condors the tinge of fire the breath of life the trail of incensed smoke swirling. Lana C Williams is co-founder of La Jan Productions, A Writers' Consortium, a non-profit literary organization dedicated to promoting African American writers, and a charter member of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective. A native of Detroit, now living in Raleigh, NC she has just complet her first tome of poetry, Soul to Soul: Voices in the Night of Day. Her three-part metrical composition "A'she" is dedicated to African American sculptor Barbara Gault, pair of whose works are entitled Theit and Billow. COPYRIGHT 1997 African American Review |
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