negritude poetry

Birago Diop, “Spirits”

Listen to
Things
More often
than Beings,
Hear the
voice of fire,
Hear the
voice of water.
Listen in the
wind,
To the sighs
of the bush;
This is the
ancestors breathing.

Those who are
dead are not ever gone;
They are in
the darkness that grows lighter
And in the
darkness that grows darker.
The dead are
not down in the earth;
They are in
the trembling of the trees
In the
groaning of the woods,
In the water
that runs,
In the water
that sleeps,
They are in
the hut, they are in the crowd:
The dead are
not dead.

Listen to
things
More often
than beings,
Hear the
voice of fire,
Hear the
voice of water.
Listen in the
wind,
To the bush
that is sighing:
This is the
breathing of ancestors,
Who have not
gone away
Who are not
under earth
Who are not
really dead.

Those who are
dead are not ever gone;
They are in a
woman’s breast,
In the
wailing of a child,
And the
burning of a log,
In the
moaning rock,
In the
weeping grasses,
In the forest
and the home.
The dead are
not dead.

Listen more
often
To Things
than to Beings,
Hear the
voice of fire,
Hear the
voice of water.
Listen in the
wind to
The bush that
is sobbing:
This is the
ancestors breathing.

Each day they
renew ancient bonds,
Ancient bonds
that hold fast
Binding our
lot to their law,
To the will
of the spirits stronger than we
To the spell
of our dead who are not really dead,
Whose
covenant binds us to life,
Whose
authority binds to their will,
The will of
the spirits that stir
In the bed of
the river, on the banks of the river,
The breathing
of spirits
Who moan in
the rocks and weep in the grasses.

Spirits
inhabit
The darkness
that lightens, the darkness that darkens,
The quivering
tree, the murmuring wood,
The water
that runs and the water that sleeps:
Spirits much
stronger than we,
The breathing
of the dead who are not really
dead,
Of the dead
who are not really gone,
Of the dead
now no more in the earth.

Listen to
Things
More often
than Beings,
Hear the
voice of fire,
Hear the
voice of water.
Listen in the
wind,
To the bush
that is sobbing:
This is the
ancestors, breathing.



Source:
The Negritude
Poets, ed. Ellen
Conroy Kennedy. New York:
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989.