Toubab Dancer

The djembes have called for days.

They aren’t for you

so you stay busy, pretending

to ignore the groups of twos and threes

trickling in from all around,

the growing party atmosphere.

The village is throwing a wedding and

because they are black and

part of a tribe and you

are white and a singular oddity

you are uninvited.

Not out of rudeness; simply

they don’t understand who you are.

Why should you want to go?

But night has fallen again and you

are again pacing the small hot rooftop balcony

with your warm beer and your cold, restless mind.

Suddenly the social boundaries aren’t

enough to keep you out of trouble.

The moon is a ripe yellow three-quarter and across

the goat-path they call a road, out in a bare field

a red fire flickers. The drums are there.

Leaping figures, laughter, shouting.

Your feet take you (rebellious things)

down the steps and across the stubbled remnants

of cassava plants that scratch your legs.

Here and there a stump smolders:

ashes smudge your skin but do not hide

what you are: Toubab, pale wanderer

an unknown creature, a question mark.

Too soon you arrive; it is far fiercer than you imagined

the fire burns high and hot

the dancers whirl, leopard-like and fast

slamming to a stop in midair on seeing you:

everyone turning in your direction
children scattering.

The circle parts for you, drums faltering slightly.

This is unprecedented

a violation they have no words for. Nothing to be done

but bow your head to ask permission

shuffling your too-clean sandals in the dust.  

Eternity passes

as it does for all fools

with a glacial smile.

Suddenly a woman snorts

(laughter? mocking?) and stamps her bare black

hard-as-horn foot so fiercely your stomach drops

and the dance resumes.

You are caught up, swept up, beat up

by those drums: goatskin and wood and thong

set to burst the world apart.

Your heart--a human heart--is simply too small

to contain such a thing.

So you must dance

and soon your sandals are a thing of the past.

Those are your bare feet stamping alongside theirs

your arms encircling the moon

your spine a black mamba

coiled round a tree trunk that later turns out

to be Joseph from the other side of the village.

It is daylight before you can stop

even then

you are still dancing your way home across the field

blood filling your ragged footprints.

It will be days before you can move without pain

weeks of delighted smiles among the lot of you

years--maybe never--before your heart

forgets the rending it takes this night, for now

you are twofold:

that pale cool question-mark of a Toubab

and this creature born of blood, fire and rhythm

dwelling side by side in the same skin

walking the same earth

hearing the same whisper

dance, my sweet

troublesome child,

dance.

 ©KB 5/9/12