They looked at our broken concrete,
our bullet-pocked brick,
our zinc roofs rusted by the salt-wind of the Atlantic,
and they asked: Where did the beauty go?
They thought the fire went out when the smoke cleared.
But they don’t know about the spark.
They don’t know about the breath.
It is not in the museum.
It is not behind glass.
The culture is the thing that makes your tongue fire
when the Koloqua leaves your teeth on the street corner.
It’s the sharp tick-tick of knuckles snapping in the noon heat,
a handshake that says: I see you, my brother. We still here.

Zlan ɓo.
The Creator is inside the noise.
It is inside the elbow of the drummer
when the skin of the goat cries out to the night,
waking the red dust of the hinterland.
It is inside the oil that stains the palm-butter pot—
thick, heavy, heating up the kitchen
while the market women sing their heavy loads into light things.
Look at the way we walk.
Look at the way we don’t bend for the storm.
That is not just human spine
that is the marrow of the old people
still trapped inside our bones.
That is the shadow of the ancient cotton tree
stretching its arms through our stride.
We are a people who know how to cry die,
but God knows we know how to laugh die, too.
We turn our grief into rhythm,
our hunger into hustle,
our dust into gold.
So don’t look for the spirit of this country in the history books.
Don’t look for it in the palaces that grow moss in the humidity.
Touch your chest.
Listen to the heavy bass line of your own blood.
Feel that beat?

Zlan ɓo.
The country is inside the bone,
and the breath is finally speaking.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by IRIS AVI on Unsplash