Outside Dakar - Dream

Outside Dakar, I am walking through tall brown grass.
I am hearing bells.
Apparently, a holy day
with a brisk wind dancing in grass
to the sound of bells
and God's sun moving people along.

They are wearing bright-colored robes and their shadows dance
as they move along through the grass.
A drumming comes
from far off.
It’s the sound of logs
hollowed out and pounded with sticks.
It’s the sound of God dancing inside his heaven.

As they advance, the people also are dancing
to drums and bells.
From the church comes the sound of singing.
It’s a happy sound.

But I am thinking of slaves and the pain that is in slave music,
how they called to God
to be delivered from the hand of men,
for a time made free,
their spirits dancing
in time to God’s feet dancing.

And God is here, together with that endless yearning
that has been transformed
from cruelty and pain into dancing.
I am thinking blues,
that sound so full of the spirit, guitars and drums,
and a music to which people come
from the earth's great nations.

If I could explain it, I would, but it was a dream,
yet something I still remember:
how I took up soil
and rubbed it in the pores of my skin
as I might rub in
oil to relieve roughness or dryness,
or perhaps begin
to give up my birthright of whiteness.