'Black Woman' by Léopold Sédar Senghor

Naked woman, black womanClothed with your colour which is life,with your form which is beauty!In your shadow I have grown up; thegentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes.And now, high up on the sun-bakedpass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon,I come upon you, my Promised Land,And your beauty strikes me to the heartlike the flash of an eagle.Naked woman, dark womanFirm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre rapturesof black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouthSavannah stretching to clear horizons,savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind'seager caressesCarved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, mutteringunder the Conqueror's fingersYour solemn contralto voice is thespiritual song of the Beloved.Naked woman, dark womanOil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on theathlete's flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of MaliGazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on thenight of your skinDelights of the mind, the glinting of redgold against your watered skinUnder the shadow of your hair, my careis lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes.Naked woman, black woman,I sing your beauty that passes, the formthat I fix in the Eternal,Before jealous fate turn you to ashes tofeed the roots of life.

Léopold Sédar Senghor (9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician, and cultural theorist who for two decades served as the first president of Senegal (1960–80). He is regarded by many as one of the most important African intellectuals of the 20th century.

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