Friday 5 February 2010

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)

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