My Hair Is     By Lua Davis (Cameroon)

My hair is loud!

Like the ricochet of voices rumbling

down the streets of Washington, D.C.                                 ,,

during the march of 1963. It yells: “Here I am! Here I am!” Even in silence.

My hair is triumphant. Like the exultant echo of my mother’s footsteps as

she glided across that stage to embrace the diploma of a first generation

graduate. It dances to the discord of discrimination, never forgetting that

a symphony is only made with patient persistence. My hair isresilient. Like

the Cameroonian women of my family who toiled selling granuts &palm oil

on the red-clay-soil roadside to ensure that their brothers received education:

women who, despite being regarded 2nd, still moved mountains for themselves

and their kin. It revolutionarily recoils at the oppositional pull of adversity in order        to

revisit the importance of its roots. My hair is poetic. Like songs loftily uplifted bymy

Bakossi people to heaven during prayer. Each strand is the stanza of a love poem to

God. My hair is proud. Like the coalition of kings and queens crowned with the

curls of their           ancestors—whose hair continues to bloom in spite of

the cumbrances of oppression. It blossoms

in common accord with allied heritage

preservation. My hair is intricate. Like

the diverse cloths that kiss the skin

of my African brothers and sisters.

It harbors clusters of contrasting

curl patterns: each beautiful in

its textured diversity. My hair

is a thank you note to the soil

from which we leapt, to sun–

kissed mothers plaiting their

childrens’ ulotrichous locks,

to the men and women

with raised voices and

elevated signs, protest-

ing in Ferguson, MO,

to the parents who

tell their dark-skin

babies, “You are

more than the

world says

you are.”

My hair

Is.