The Black Woman of Africa

By Nathanael Tanko Noah

The Black Woman of Africa is a gamut of well crafted poetry. It shares the human experiences of love, hate, friendship, romance, death, violence, nostalgic feelings, hope, loneliness, adoration. The poem from which the title of the book derives, particularly celebrates the virtues of hard work, resilience and motherly love of the African woman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Sep 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499089271

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Nathanael Tanko Noah.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/10/2014

Xlibris LLC

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

670274

Contents

Chapter 1: African love

Silhouette

Song of the kraal

Ibe’s bride

Each time I look at you

The black woman of Africa

Nobu

Faded beauty

Memento

Today I met a lady

I’m sorry

Troth

A million pieces

A love note

Azare

The pain within

Perfect love

My uncle’s wife

Okrishi

What is Love?

The scent of a rose

February 14

Tendrils

A black woman’s blush

A wish

Bouquet

Sunset

Belaboured

What a man can do

Harvest season

Tomgirl

Chapter 2: A harvest of shame

A wonderful day

A new world

A new life

Plateau the beautiful

A harvest of shame

Soldier, soldier

9/11

Democrazy

Passing

Ishmael, my brother

Today

Deserting

Chapter 3: When the World was Innocent

Becoming

I shut my eyes

Agony

Negroid

Soliloquy

Irreplaceable

If

Lifted

Shendat

The waiting room

Conversations with me

Freedom

The crownless monarch

Vulcanizer

Miasma

Suffering and smiling

Sympathy

Idudu

Mountain, O Mountain

Once upon a time

Recollections

Morning Yet Again

Simple English

The Mirror

Day Dream

Reality

Nothing new

Dilemma of a Friend

If Death must Visit

They Lurk Below

The Rooster

What Else?

But a Flower

Tomorrow

Don’t Make a Jest of Me

A Stately Demise

It Was Not You

When it Happens

Vanity

He Never Returned

Solitude

Farewell

To Grandpa

Altogether New

The Man in My Life

Unborn Tomorrow

Akara Woman

If Tomorrow Comes

Mother

Father

Out in the cold

Home alone

Ghosts

Life

Chronicle of wasted time

Blessings of a mad man

A different world

Best wishes

Cynics

The last lap

Life

The broken quill

They came from obscure places across the seas

And, now he rests

He was a giant

A cloud of yellow dust

A man, a woman and a baby

Go and get married

This hatred is tangible

A young mother sits

There she lay in red blood

Nyanya Blast

Another Nyanya Bomb Blast

Our world is

It’s ok to cry when in the sun’s heat

To live long enough to ripen

Marcella

Candle on a windowsill

My dear Ma’ana

Why does my heart squelch?

Mwehenhen

We went on a journey

Black out

The candle burned so bright

I love the smell of burning grass

I caught a ray of sunlight in my hand

Abuja

I am the large black blanket

Mr dear Titilayo,

I remember vividly

Every time I get a chance

Out of the distant past

Pa’Aba

I can’t wait for you to come

home in July

The Big Silent One

The Fall

Bedlam

Salvage

Pure Grace

Return

How can I forget?

He paces

All of grace

Dear God

Beautiful Me

Sanctified

Dedication

Grace Wabare Noah

the woman whose passions lounged in simple lines;

the African woman . . .

I

never knew

Chapter 1: African love

A man always chases a woman until she catches him.

– Anonymous

Silhouette

There is a hole in my African heart

a black girl put it there.

Say,

she does not care whether it hurts

or

I bleed.

She lives in her world;

her beauty matches

the deep black African night.

When the moon shines her silver

and stars blink their shimmer

when drums of the after-harvest roll

and young maidens dance in the moon-lit-night

we will the silhouette

on the garner

be.

Song of the kraal

We share something deep

as the Zambezi

fresh

as the juice of the early morning keg.

Our love is warm and tender;

it is a cup of milk

from the kraal

of the mountain goats in the rainy season

I love Shebegeni

she loves me so

I love Shebegeni

I love her more.

O ye maidens look and see

behold your mistress

praise her beauty

praise the song of the kraal.

Ibe’s bride

Akueke is the bride for a king.

We offered many pots of wine

and a giant goat

they honoured us men

They sat in a half moon

my bride and other women

adorned in waist beads and anklets of brass

bedecked in colours irresistible

As night fell

burning torches set the mood

frenzy

girls came to dance

when the bride brought a cock-

I joined the circle

If I hold her hand

she says,

don’t touch!

If I hold her foot

she says,

don’t touch!

But when I hold her waist beads

she pretends not to know.

Each time I look at you

Each time I look at you

I see a beautiful black woman

a daughter of the rich black soil

of my dear mother land.

Each time I look at you

I see your warm heart

Through the glasses of your white pair of eyes

Filled with honest respect for me

a son of this rich black soil.

Each time I look at you

and you smile back at me

I lay my black back on the African cloud

and ride the fairy cotton.

Each time I look at you

I hold the forest on my shoulders;

Fuel for your mother’s fireplace.

I tread on the earth

A warrior,

your father’s pride,

The champion among my peers,

The envy of your maidens.

Each time I look at you

I bear you in my arms

And travel the terrain of the spirits

Cross the great safari

Abseil