WHEN Tchicaya U’Tamsi was asked the fate of his soul in the next life, he said “to be a pagan at the pagan renewal of the world.” Adoka gave me my paganism but Lagos offered the first cowries through which to invoke the souls of my ancestors.
My life has been caught between the crucifix and the shrine. Like Tchicaya, I kissed the cross and my lips was stained with blood. It wasn’t the blood of Christ. It was black bodies chopped to feed the glory of the West.
Thanks to Senorita, my love from Europe: “I lost my negritude” through her romance. Her left breast birth capitalism inside my mouth. Her right breast taught me to forget my history.
Like I said in We Will Sing Water, “I left the altar when the priest speaking Latin/ & spicing Christ in harsh English vowels” asked me to abandon my tongue. I held on. I sang the melodies of streams carrying black bodies that drowned in the Atlantic home to me.
Oh, lonely Yemoja! Carrying bodies of black children who knew the loneliness of dying tastes sweeter than slavery. They obeyed the sea’s call for a kiss. They sang water into the ear drums of history.
I am going to the shrine again. The white God stands with swords asking me to convert or die. He threatens me with fire.
But
I am a pagan carrying the gift of singing rivers. My ancestors quenched the flames once by drowning. So they would give me water to never be scared of hell.
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