The New Ships

Mammies crowded with cloths,

flowered and laughed;

white teeth,

smooth voices like pebbles

moved by the 

sea of their language.

Akwaaba they smiled

meaning welcome

akwaaba they called

aye koo

well have you talked 

have you journeyed

welcome

you have come back a stranger

after three hundred years

welcome

here is a stool for 

you; sit; do

you remember

here is water

dip

wash your hands

are you ready to eat?

- The New Ships by Kamau Brathwaite in The Masks (1968)

sampled from a paper by Robert Cancel "Whose Africa is it anyway?..." (2000)