There’s secrets we hide under this skin.
Swallowed tears and oceans. Chants and earthquakes.

Yet, the secrets I often find are in between breaths and prayer.
Alchemised in our folklore and decoded in our beads - transcended into patterned clothe - spread through our beliefs.

We are spells

carrying keys beneath these tongues that could unlock time and serenade the gates of heaven. Songs that make us meet the avatars that linger in our bones - wishing to dance their way into the days that we now breathe.

Our, history, lives in us. Heaving in the vernacular we almost forgot.

Our history, is being reborn in Shamanic spirits coloured in Indigos, browns and blues. We are Prophets and Holy Souls. Dreamers and See’ers. Amens and Ase O’s.

It finds us through our mothers’ hymns and fathers’ laughter. Hides in our grandmother’s bedtime stories. Is reborn in the waves that lick the shore.

We are the eclipse.
We are the shadow.
We, are the black hole.

I was first born a solar system.

Living in a realm where I wheezed stars and suns. My eyes, black holes to a new universe.
It was a time where planets burst from my belly and latched onto my ******* - no longer hiding in my vortex of a womb.

The world swung around my neck heavily. Steadily, I adorned my fate gracefully...

...because I was born second a mountain.
My hips creating hills and heaps while my tears birthed oceans. I carried the crescent moon in my left eye - Venus in my right.

And often times, I’d shape shift and kneel to the ground, grabbing the soil of the earth.
Its mud, dancing under my nails and knuckles. Its dust, smouldering the creases between my palms.
Sand, caressing and matching the tones of my skin. Accenting hues from the palette of eternal life.

My mouth, birthing spirits and spells. Souls - mining from my ribs.
My womb, carrying ancestors and avatars - Coloured girls glowing in browns, blacks, purples and blues.
Their nebula personifying secrets from Zion as they break through the realm between my legs.

As I continue to carry my message in the wind; breathing life into lifelessness;
narrating stories of hope in times of hopelessness; morphing my magic across the abyss.

I was born third a Nubian.
A Maasai, I am the one they call MAKEBA.

Walking these townships streets as though diamonds lay at my feet.
Gliding on gravel from the ghetto to Greece. Leaving behind a fragrance so sweet.

Blessing the unblessed even when left distressed. Honoring the feminine power that flows within me. The roaring lioness! Smell the audacity of my celestial essence. I am the first to bleed, but last to fall – the S forever embroidered on my breast.

For I am you and you are her and we are She! MAKEBA!

Inkosazana. The melanated fruit that you seek. You stare in disbelief at these words that I conceive.

Sheba!

Ke mang a tshwara thipa ka bogaleng? Ke mang afang botho mo batho ba hlokang motho? Ngubani le mbogodo elingabambeki?

Beka!

My eyes, carrying alchemy.
My smile, a treasury. My skin, reflecting the origin of humanity.

I am, MAKEBA