Haiku And Tanka For Harriet Tubman
By Sonia Sanchez
1
Picture a woman
riding thunder on
the legs of slavery …
2
Picture her kissing
our spines saying no to
the eyes of slavery …
3
Picture her rotating
the earth into a shape
of lives becoming …
4
Picture her leaning
into the eyes of our
birth clouds …
5
Picture this woman
saying no to the constant
yes of slavery …
6
Picture a woman
jumping rivers her
legs inhaling moons …
7
Picture her ripe
with seasons of
legs … running …
8
Picture her tasting
the secret corners
of woods …
9
Picture her saying:
You have within you the strength,
the patience, and the passion
to reach for the stars,
to change the world …
10
Imagine her words:
Every great dream begins
with a dreamer …
11
Imagine her saying:
I freed a thousand slaves,
could have freed
a thousand more if they
only knew they were slaves …
12
Imagine her humming:
How many days we got
fore we taste freedom …
13
Imagine a woman
asking: How many workers
for this freedom quilt …
14
Picture her saying:
A live runaway could do great harm by going back
but a dead runaway
could tell no secrets …
15
Picture the daylight
bringing her to woods
full of birth moons …
16
Picture John Brown
shaking her hands three times saying:
General Tubman. General Tubman. General Tubman.
17
Picture her words:
There’s two things I got a
right to: death or liberty …
18
Picture her saying no
to a play called Uncle Tom’s Cabin:
I am the real thing …
19
Picture a Black woman:
could not read or write
trailing freedom refrains …
20
Picture her face
turning southward walking
down a Southern road …
21
Picture this woman
freedom bound … tasting a
people’s preserved breath …
22
Picture this woman
of royalty … wearing a crown
of morning air …
23
Picture her walking,
running, reviving
a country’s breath …
24
Picture black voices
leaving behind
lost tongues …
