They don’t give their smiles out for free here.
If I were not watching
Not listening
Not feeling the great unspoken magnitude of her life
I would have found her rude
For that stare
So severe
Like the shadow of a humpback whale
Which rises under your tiny boat
And through no malice or ill will
It dashes your ship to pieces
And sprawls you into the ocean to drown.
That is what lurks beneath those eyes
When she says, “Yes, sir,”
And who am I
That she should smile at me
Wealthy foreigner from across the ocean
She holds a mop in a soapy pail of water
I do not need to mop a stranger’s room
To feed my children
So I have earned
Whatever darkness
Lies behind that gaze.
They did not smile at the restaurant either
I do not know what I saw
But even half a millennia and ten thousand miles apart
I would know joy if I saw it
And this is not joy.
But the sun broke through an overcast day
Late afternoon at the clothing store
God granted a small gift
A smile broke across the cashier’s face
And I knew at once
Why they don’t give their smiles away for free here.
Because if all of them were smiling
The rainbow gleam that would shine from West Africa
Would blind the airplane pilots
And scramble the satellites
And short circuit the cell phone towers
Because the laughter of an African
Is the purest note ever sounded
In God’s orchestra
It fills the earth and sky
The soul nearly bursts to hear it
It is like sunrise over the mountains
It is like white egrets, glinting sunlight
As they soar over the Kwame Nkrumah memorial
A Nigerian woman smiling
Is what one searches a lifetime to find
And must race to the jeweler
For an engagement ring
Just in case
She lays with mortals
Like in the epic stories
A Ghanaian man dancing with his friends
Is a symphony
Played by golden trumpets in high altitudes
Their joy is a spray of crystal fountain water
In patterns of silver and blue
As a child poses between the stone pillars
A gap in her white teeth
A straw hat on her brow, gently torn on one side
The smile she gives to that camera
Might shatter the lens
And crash the circuit board
Impossible to capture
Its only house is the open sky.
There is not enough atmosphere to contain
What happens as her siblings crowd around to ruin the photo
And they all begin to laugh
The sight is like the promised land
For the first time
I truly understand
What Gospel music
Is about.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
It’s a Highway to Heaven
I got a robe up in-a that kingdom
Ain’t that Good News?
It’s Good News
When we wake up
To a world unfolding
It’s Good News
When your sleeping face is there beside me
And Praise God
Your chest is still rising and falling
Quiet breaths
I’d rest with you
But let me stay awake
A little while longer
To drink it in.