Hey...this is actually an edit to the post that I had made last year on the poem of Bassey Ikpi called Homeward. I got those lyrics from her website, but I didn't realize that they didn't match up with the video that I gave you. Which is my fault, I should have checked first. I think she shortened it for her performance. So I've fixed it and will give it to you again.
Homeward
Today, I remember my grandmother
As she attempts to connect with her second children
she finds the only english words she knows
from somewhere hidden in the belly of her 4 foot 9 inch body
and instead of awonke she greets us with "bye bye"
beckoning us into her thin clay colored arms
Those arms mothered my mother
taught her how to mother me
I inhale the history from her skin
And she tells me of the small scared girl carried away on an iron bird to America
Seems like that same bird has returned only to replace
that perfect girl with me
this strange tongue tied woman,
the one that can barely say hello
without the clicks and moans the dips and tones of the white man's language
It breaks my heart to realize that
I can only love her clearly in English
But this is not my only tongue
Insolent and heavy with the awkward movements of amber waves
east or west this is not my village
and my heart still longs for my grandmother's voice
steady and strong crossing rivers and oceans
rounding buildings of mud, thatched roof
steel and glass
concrete and confusion
Yet I am afraid that it will not find me here
in this land miles
from the one that welcomed me into this world
lifetimes before I existed in this cosmopolitan space
"nbong non yin ben yami?"
"nbong non yin ben yami?"
what will I teach my children?
what will I tell them of where I've been
the earth that shaped me
the hands that held me
what will they call home
and will they hear it if and when it calls them
oklahoma
DC
brooklyn
will not help me remember
ikom
ugep
calabar
they will also not let me forget fingers sticky with fuu fuu
swallowed whole
tongues stinging numb from plantain fried in palm oil
But I have lost the grit and the grain of my grandmother's gari
I can't taste past this nostalgic lump in my throat
can't stomach the reality of this my divided culture
African
American
I am everything
And I am nothing
Nigeria quietly begs me to remember
While America slowly urges me to forget
but it's for my past
It's for my future
it is for my children
and it is for you, grandmother
that I must
always
always
remember
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1 comment:
i love that poem - and i feel her 100%.
many a times, i forget that i was named wealth before i left my mother's womb. i forget that i come from a place with history so deep the oceans speak when prompted.
thanks for reminding me.
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