Listen to the sound of the drums
Mother said 'it is the beat of our hearts,
The bond of the earth,
Like the placenta of Ani;
the earth deity to us
Giving us succor, providing, nurturing'.
Listen to the sound of the drums
Then together we will dance
Swaying to its mesmerising rhythm
We will sway our hips,
this way then that
twist our slippery backs
To it's story, our story.
The smell of the new rain on the soil
In our noses.
Some days in our hut
We hear the drums
From the neighbouring villages
Sometimes, on moonlit nights
I smell fires and the earth
I feel the throb of thousands of feet
Those before, those before those before
This is our bond to the earth.
These drums tell stories
Our stories of survival
How we beat the giants and the ants
Those tales I've set out to tell
Let the land see us through.
I started this collection of poems to tell stories. Stories I've known. Sometimes, I feel like it runs in my flesh, clings to me, defines me.
Here, I'll be telling stories my father told me under the stars.
Follow me to west Africa!!❤💋
YOU ARE READING
Drums and sands
Poesíalife through the eyes of an African child. Her transformations, her visions. Those things we can never 'unlive', sights we can't 'unsee', those things make us alive; US!
