FOR MARGARET WALKER I want to write the songs of my people ..................................... I want to frame their dreams into words their souls into notes I want to catch their sunshine laughter in a bowl -- Margaret Walker, This is My Century I "This is my century", you proclaimed: your songs sharpened their teeth against the silence of its seasons Plumbed its skies for hidden moons sewed its days into garlands for the Daughters of Light Face powdered with the dust of galloping suns, you watched dark horses neigh with the night, their saddles red With fire and sable winds; when you spoke with the Sky, the Heavens answered in thunder and purple showers And so the Mississippi of your Muse never lacked a current of alluvial visions thronged, swift-footed, long-memoried Black like polished mahogany brown like a chocolate laughter mellow like the blues which rose Above the delta roofs quick with questions tremulous like a water reed . . . II Native Daughter, you left your song in the bruised palm of domestic hands In the drudgery of Negro hordes pounding city pavements seeking justice, finding none In the chaingangs of crowded prisons where Black manhood withers behind the walls and wails fall back to earth like wingless echoes We have walked on thorn-roads and tear-tracks bearing pale idols like millennial burdens Across shark-choked oceans in yoked transportations reeking of blood and bones The wound is wide, the scar severe, but Agony’s long road is shorter than Hope Jubilee drums ride the winds summoning us to new steps new songs hatch in the nest of buried feathers “This is my century”, you proclaimed, your voice the colour of earth your song glowing like a tropical sunset You have dipped your pen in sunlight and written sour nights into daring days your face soft-blue like a summer sky. Niyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare is a prolific poet, playwright, and literary scholar. He was born in 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. Having served as a professor and also Department Head of English at the University of Ibadan for eight years, Osundare and his family moved to the United States to allow one of his daughters the chance to broaden her education. He has been an English professor at the University of New Orleans since 1997. His most recent poetry collection is entitled City Without People.