Léopold Sedar Senghor, “Prayer to the Masks”

Masks! O Masks!

Black mask red mask you white-and-black masks,

Masks at the four points the Spirit breathes from,

I salute you in silence!

And not you last, lion-headed Ancestor,

You guard this place from any woman’s laughter, any fading smile,

Distilling this eternal air in which I breathe my Forebears.

Basks of maskless faces, stripped of every dimple as of every wrinkle,

You who have arranged this portrait, this face of mine bent above this altar of white paper

In your image, hear me!

Now dies the Africa of empires—the dying of a pitiable princess

And Europe’s too, to whom we’re linked by the umbilicus.

Fix your immutable eyes on your subjugated children,

Who relinquish their lives as the poor their last garments.

May we answer present at the world’s rebirth,

Like the yeast white flour needs.

For who would teach rhythm to a dead world of cannons and machines?

Who would give the shout of joy at dawn to wake the dead and orphaned?

Tell me, who would restore the memory of life to men whose hopes are disemboweled?

They call us men of cotton, coffee, oil.

They call us men of death.

We are men of dance, whose feet take on new strength from stamping the hard ground.

Yamba Ouloguem, “Dear Husband”

Once your name was Bimbircokak

And everything was fine.

They you became Victor-Emile-Louis-Henri-Joseph

And bought a dinner set.

I used to be your wife.

Now you call me spouse.

We used to eat together.

Now we’re separated by a table.

Calabash and ladle,

drinking gourd and couscous

are banished from our daily fare

by your paternal order.

We’re modern now, you say.

The tropic sun is hot, hot, hot!

But your cravat

never leaves the neck

it nearly strangles.

You frown

when I mention it,

never mind, I’ll say no more.

But husband, look at me!

We eat grapes and

milk that’s pasteurized

and imported gingerbread from France

and don’t get much of any.

Isn’t it your fault?

You used to be Bimbircokak

and everything was fine.

Becoming Victor-Emile-Louis-Henri-Joseph

as far as I can see

doesn’t make you kin

to Rockefeller!

(Excuse my ignorance, I don’t know much

about finance.)

But can’t you see

Bimbircokak

—because of you—

once I was underdeveloped

now I’m undernourished, too!

Birago Diop, “Spirits”

Listen to Things

More often than Beings,

Hear the voice of fire,

Hear the voice of water.

Listen in the wind,

To the sighs of the bush;

This is the ancestors breathing.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;

They are in the darkness that grows lighter

And in the darkness that grows darker.

The dead are not down in the earth;

They are in the trembling of the trees

In the groaning of the woods,

In the water that runs,

In the water that sleeps,

They are in the hut, they are in the crowd:

The dead are not dead.

Listen to things

More often than beings,

Hear the voice of fire,

Hear the voice of water.

Listen in the wind,

To the bush that is sighing:

This is the breathing of ancestors,

Who have not gone away

Who are not under earth

Who are not really dead.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;

They are in a woman’s breast,

In the wailing of a child,

And the burning of a log,

In the moaning rock,

In the weeping grasses,

In the forest and the home.

The dead are not dead.

Listen more often

To Things than to Beings,

Hear the voice of fire,

Hear the voice of water.

Listen in the wind to

The bush that is sobbing:

This is the ancestors breathing.

Each day they renew ancient bonds,

Ancient bonds that hold fast

Binding our lot to their law,

To the will of the spirits stronger than we

To the spell of our dead who are not really dead,

Whose covenant binds us to life,

Whose authority binds to their will,

The will of the spirits that stir

In the bed of the river, on the banks of the river,

The breathing of spirits

Who moan in the rocks and weep in the grasses.

Spirits inhabit

The darkness that lightens, the darkness that darkens,

The quivering tree, the murmuring wood,

The water that runs and the water that sleeps:

Spirits much stronger than we,

The breathing of the dead who are not really dead,

Of the dead who are not really gone,

Of the dead now no more in the earth.

Listen to Things

More often than Beings,

Hear the voice of fire,

Hear the voice of water.

Listen in the wind,

To the bush that is sobbing:

This is the ancestors, breathing.

Source:

The Negritude Poets, ed. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989.