The Child is Alive

Photo credit: photoglife from morguefile.com

(The following poem is inspired by the birth scene in the film Sankofa. A pregnant woman runs away. She is caught and taken back to the plantation. For her punishment she is given 100 lashes. The woman dies, her belly bulging in front of her. A midwife on the plantation decides to deliver the child from the dead woman.)

And a niece of granny Nanny

an Akan woman, a woman who can see far,

a woman with the knowledge of herbs

a woman who works in the field, cutting cane

a woman who speaks the language of her grandmothers

a woman who tells stories of magical animals, of talking

trees, and of fabled cities beneath mighty rivers

a woman who was stolen from her village when she was 14

a woman who was raped on the slave ship by a white sailor

a woman who flies to Africa when she sleeps

This woman, this niece of granny Nanny

take her cutlass and runs with the swiftness

of Sogolon Conde in her guise as Buffalo woman

this woman runs with her machete

an ancient chant rising from her throat

an ancient chant imploring the gods and all the

spirits that attend women in childbirth to come

to her aid

She calls her companions: "form a circle around the dead woman

breathe, breathe deeply, give her breath,

give her life."

This woman, this niece of granny Nanny enters

the cirle and with her cutlass, the ancient chant leaping from

her lips,

cuts opens the belly of the woman and releases the child

while her companions hum and chant softly.

Oh praise to the ancestors!

the child is alive

oh Onyame, take the spirit of the mother*

praise to the ancestors,

in the midst of misery and pain

in the midst of humiliation and grief

in the midst of this inhumanity

praise to the ancestors the child lives

oh Onyame, take the spirit of the mother

This woman, this niece of granny Nanny, this ancient midwife

dances with the child, backward, forward, sideward

spins and joins her companions dancing like the priestess

she would have been had not slavers stolen her away

from her people

the woman dances

east

south

west

north

she holds the child up to the sky

blessings

Oh praise to the ancestors

the child lives

oh Onyame, take the spirit of the mother

oh praise to the ancestors

the child is alive!

Woye! woye! woye!

(*Onyame is the Twi (Akan language) for God)

~ Afua Cooper