Black Woman
Naked woman, black woman
Clothed with your colour which is life, with your form
which is beauty!
In your shadow I have grown up; the gentleness of your
hands was laid over my eyes.
And now, high up on the sun-baked pass, at the heart
of summer, at the heart of noon, I come upon you, my
Promised Land,
And your beauty strikes me to the heart like the flash of
an eagle.
Naked woman, dark woman
Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures of black wine,
mouth making lyrical my mouth
Savannah stretching to clear horizons, savannah
shuddering beneath the East Wind's eager caresses
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering under the
Conqueror's fingers
Your solemn contralto voice is the spiritual song of the
Beloved.
Naked woman, dark woman
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the athlete's
flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the night
of your skin
Delights of the mind, the glinting of red gold against
your watered skin
Under the shadow of your hair, my care is lightened by
the neighbouring suns of your eyes.
Naked woman, black woman,
I sing your beauty that passes, the form that I fix in the
Eternal,
Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to feed the roots of life.
Leopold Sedar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese Negritude poet and politician. He was the first president of Senegal. Senghor was born on 9th October 1906 in Joal , French West Africa (present-day Senegal) and died on 20th December 2001 in Verson , France.
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