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Authors: Sonia Sanchez
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nightingales singing us out of fear
Splashing the failed places with light.
We are here.
On the green of leaves
On the shifting waves of blues,
Knowing once that our places divided us
Knowing once that our color divided us
Knowing once that our class divided us
Knowing once that our sex divided us
Knowing once that our country divided us
Now we carry the signature of women in our veins
Now we build our reconciliation canes in morning fields
Now the days no longer betray us
and we ascend into wave after wave of our blood milk.
What can we say without blood?
5.
Her Story.
Herstory smiles at us.
Little by little we shall interpret the decorum of peace
Little by little we shall make circles of these triangular stars
We Shall strip-mine the world’s eyes of secrets
We shall gather up our voices
Braid them into our flesh like emeralds
Come. Bring us all the women’s hands
Let us knead calluses into smiles
Let us gather the mountains in our children’s eyes
Distill our unawakened love
Say hello to the mangoes
the uninformed men
the nuns
the prostitutes
the rainmothers
the squirrels
the clouds
the homeless.
Come. Celebrate our footsteps insatiable as sudden breathing
Love curves the journey of these women sails
Love says Awoman. Awoman to these tongues of thunder
Come celebrate this prayer
I bring to our common ground.
It is enough
to confound the conquistadores
it is enough to shape our lace,
our name.
Make us become healers
Come celebrate the poor
the women
the gays
the lesbians
the men
the children
the black, brown, yellow, white
Sweat peeling with stories
Aaaaayeee babo.
I spit on the ground
I spit language on the dust
I spit memory on the water
I spit hope on this seminary
I spit teeth on the wonder of women, holy volcanic women
Recapturing the memory of our most sacred sounds.
Come
where the drum speaks
come tongued by fire and water and bone
come praise God and
Ogun and Shango and
Olukun and Oya and
Jesus
Come praise our innocence
our decision to be human
reenter the spirit of morning doves
and our God is near
I say our God is near
I say our God is near
Aaaayeee babo Aaaayeee babo Aaaayeee babo
(Praise God).
CREDITS
Grateful acknowledgment is made for the permission to reprint the following:
Material from
I’ve Been a Woman
by Sonia Sanchez copyright © 1978 by Sonia Sanchez. Reprinted by permission of Third World Press, Inc., Chicago, Illinois.
Material from
homegirls & handgrenades
by Sonia Sanchez copyright © 1984 by Sonia Sanchez. Appears by permission of the publisher, Thunder’s Mouth Press.
Permission granted by the publisher Africa World Press, Inc. for reprinting the following poems from Sonia Sanchez’s
Under a Soprano Sky
copyright © 1987 by Sonia Sanchez, all rights reserved: “Under a Soprano Sky”; “Philadelphia: Spring, 1985”; “Haiku (for the police on Osage Ave.)”; “Dear Mama”; “Fall”; “Fragment I”; “Fragment 2”; “Haiku”; “Towhomitmayconcern”; “Blues”; “Song No. 2”; “An Anthem”; and “Graduation Notes.”
“Aaaayeee Babo (Praise God)” was commissioned by the Auburn Theological Seminary for Speaking in the Open: The Public Vocation of Women’s Theologies.
B E A C O N P R E S S
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org
B E A C O N P R E S S B O O K S
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 1999 by Sonia Sanchez
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 18 17 16 15 14
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Text design by Anne Chalmers
Composition by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sanchez, Sonia, 1935—
Shake loose my skin : new and selected poems / Sonia Sanchez.
p. cm.
e-ISBN: 978-0-8070-6889-2
ISBN 978-0-8070-6853-3
Splashing the failed places with light.
We are here.
On the green of leaves
On the shifting waves of blues,
Knowing once that our places divided us
Knowing once that our color divided us
Knowing once that our class divided us
Knowing once that our sex divided us
Knowing once that our country divided us
Now we carry the signature of women in our veins
Now we build our reconciliation canes in morning fields
Now the days no longer betray us
and we ascend into wave after wave of our blood milk.
What can we say without blood?
5.
Her Story.
Herstory smiles at us.
Little by little we shall interpret the decorum of peace
Little by little we shall make circles of these triangular stars
We Shall strip-mine the world’s eyes of secrets
We shall gather up our voices
Braid them into our flesh like emeralds
Come. Bring us all the women’s hands
Let us knead calluses into smiles
Let us gather the mountains in our children’s eyes
Distill our unawakened love
Say hello to the mangoes
the uninformed men
the nuns
the prostitutes
the rainmothers
the squirrels
the clouds
the homeless.
Come. Celebrate our footsteps insatiable as sudden breathing
Love curves the journey of these women sails
Love says Awoman. Awoman to these tongues of thunder
Come celebrate this prayer
I bring to our common ground.
It is enough
to confound the conquistadores
it is enough to shape our lace,
our name.
Make us become healers
Come celebrate the poor
the women
the gays
the lesbians
the men
the children
the black, brown, yellow, white
Sweat peeling with stories
Aaaaayeee babo.
I spit on the ground
I spit language on the dust
I spit memory on the water
I spit hope on this seminary
I spit teeth on the wonder of women, holy volcanic women
Recapturing the memory of our most sacred sounds.
Come
where the drum speaks
come tongued by fire and water and bone
come praise God and
Ogun and Shango and
Olukun and Oya and
Jesus
Come praise our innocence
our decision to be human
reenter the spirit of morning doves
and our God is near
I say our God is near
I say our God is near
Aaaayeee babo Aaaayeee babo Aaaayeee babo
(Praise God).
CREDITS
Grateful acknowledgment is made for the permission to reprint the following:
Material from
I’ve Been a Woman
by Sonia Sanchez copyright © 1978 by Sonia Sanchez. Reprinted by permission of Third World Press, Inc., Chicago, Illinois.
Material from
homegirls & handgrenades
by Sonia Sanchez copyright © 1984 by Sonia Sanchez. Appears by permission of the publisher, Thunder’s Mouth Press.
Permission granted by the publisher Africa World Press, Inc. for reprinting the following poems from Sonia Sanchez’s
Under a Soprano Sky
copyright © 1987 by Sonia Sanchez, all rights reserved: “Under a Soprano Sky”; “Philadelphia: Spring, 1985”; “Haiku (for the police on Osage Ave.)”; “Dear Mama”; “Fall”; “Fragment I”; “Fragment 2”; “Haiku”; “Towhomitmayconcern”; “Blues”; “Song No. 2”; “An Anthem”; and “Graduation Notes.”
“Aaaayeee Babo (Praise God)” was commissioned by the Auburn Theological Seminary for Speaking in the Open: The Public Vocation of Women’s Theologies.
B E A C O N P R E S S
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org
B E A C O N P R E S S B O O K S
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 1999 by Sonia Sanchez
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 18 17 16 15 14
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Text design by Anne Chalmers
Composition by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sanchez, Sonia, 1935—
Shake loose my skin : new and selected poems / Sonia Sanchez.
p. cm.
e-ISBN: 978-0-8070-6889-2
ISBN 978-0-8070-6853-3
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