Poem of the Week: Shailja Patel

 

 

excerpt from Offering 

 

sing history

back onto itself, sing tearing

whole again, sing altered

tally sheets clean, blood

back into bodies, blades

back to the forge

sing women

unviolated, infernos

downward to soil, crops

greenly skyward, sing it all

back to the beginning

in a language

none of us

has ever heard

have you ever woken

in the night? Reached

for the body beside you

as if its living warmth

could teach your hands

a new language?

in the dark

it is your own bare skin

the holy innocence of belly

unslashed

the fearless softness of breast

unraped

that whisper back to you

beloved

history is a million terrors

tides that have engulfed your country

you were never going to arrive

in time

it began before you

will not suck itself back

through the doorway

of your longing

and a doorway

is not a body

to wrap you

in the night

a body

is not a poem

to teach

the language you yearn for

-Shailja Patel 

Use by permission.

Photo by: Jane Corbett   

Shailja Patel  is called by CNN "the people-centered face of globalization." She connects the dots of global justice. An internationally acclaimed Kenyan poet, playwright, public intellectual and activist, her performances have received standing ovations on four continents. Her first book, Migritude, was an Amazon poetry bestseller and a Seattle Times Bestseller. Patel has appeared on the BBC, NPR, and Al-Jazeera and her work has been translated into fifteen languages. The African Women's Development Fund named Patel one of Fifty Inspirational African Feminists. She represented Kenya at the London Olympics Poetry Parnassus.   

 

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