(For My Princess, Karma Nurisha Wa Kupenda Lowe)
Come children; listen
to the drumbeats of truth
and let your minds…
hearts…and souls…dance
to these dripping griot rhythms.
How long
shall we allow
the lives
of our ancestral queens
to be omitted?
Or at best,
to be simple footnotes
in the history
of ourstory…
How long?
Even
the authenticity
of the Queen of the South—
the Queen of Sheba—
has been
a veiled regnant queen
recorded in the Bible!
Though it is now evident
that this world
had its beginning
somewhere in the Nile Valley,
little is revealed
of Queen Nefertiti of Egypt
and her contributions
to the revolutionary belief
in the one God concept
of the major religions of today.
How ironic that, even today,
our princesses and theirs…
are shocked to discover
that the Elizabeth Taylor imaging
of the great African Queen…
Cleopatra…was…is a great hoax!
Today…how many of you…
my children…know of…
the Hausa Queen…Amina
of Zaria? Nandi…Mother of Shaka?
Queen Yaa Asantewaa
of the great Asante Kingdom
of Ancient Ghana?
Once more and again my children,
realize this and believe:
free your mind and you are;
seek the truth of ourstory
and it will be found;
knock at the door of truth
and it will be opened.
And always know this truth
that the ancestors have left us:
“To not know is bad;
to not wish to know is worst.”
mlowe5, 06/2019