What it is...

Hold up...

You said that I peaked your
interest and then walked away.

I never got a chance to speak.

I saw you over there, and
although your smile said hello
and your eyes invited me to come
over, it wasn't that.

We spoke, and your voice was more
than I expected, perfect pitch to
me and as comforting as mamma's
lullaby, conversation turned into
staccato statements about want,
need, lust and love. Politics and
stance were discussed and we
achieved balance in one conversation
but it wasn't that either.

Physically, you are the challenge
that the teenage boy in me cannot
overcome. Intelligent and
curvaceous. Opinionated and
sultry country thick. Fingertips
call for me to want to hold your
hand even in the most inopportune
moment, your eyes show me more
that soulful spirituality. Your
lips say more closed in that
crooked position than when open.

The nape of your neck calls for
my lips to lightly stroke it and
damn I want to do it, but...

Nah, it's not that.

Even in the admiration of your
immense Nubian stature, not
afraid to show the world the hips
that baby Africa rests on, having no
inhibitions on displaying the
earth tones that personify your
the depth and richness that is
your skin... impresses me.

But it ain't that either.

Being able to handle your own
against the powers of the world
both government and corporate.
Challenging men with deep pockets
and old societies who reflect a
polar opposite of us in the relentless
pursuit of tangible things. Being
daddy when daddy can't be and being
acknowledged as mother to the world.

Ain't that.
I'll tell you what it is.

I see God in you.
2006 Hassan Olumoroti Ntimbanjayo

I remember when I wrote that for her. I remember the look I received the first time our eyes met. As I wrote this, I knew that it was the first time I had written about any encounter I had at all. I was so overwhelmed in actually being right there, that she had actually taken the time to spend it with lil old me those words formed in my head as I tried to keep from squirming in my seat. When I got home, I remembered exactly what I thought.

Sometimes I feel so small in a world that I know I can topple if I ever opened my big mouth.

It wasn't the world that had my mouth agape, it was the fact that I could feel the anger, the lust, the unappreciated love she had to give, her yearn to bare children, her wanting to save the world one child at a time, the interest she took in me...

I could feel her.

I have never felt anything like that in my life and I know why. I had traveled so far to do other things, blowing off serious appointments and a meeting just to make time because what I felt from afar was just the tip of an emotional iceberg and I had to be in her presence just once. I was afraid of being there, but I stood pat. I had finally found someone that had more control over thier power than I. It's known that I have this thing, like a newfound mutant over at Professor Xavier's school, this thing that I do that evokes emotion through speech, written word and song. I know that I have these gifts, but I cannot seize the power to do what I want to do with it because I know it's God's will and not mine. But to meet someone that has that thing you can feel just from standing there...

Shit.

I know why I wrote what I wrote. I felt at home in her presence, and it was hard to talk about the intimate so we conversed about the mundane, secretly giving subtle hints to the deeper aspect of what really was. It went on for hours. I finally got over the urge to just piss my pants in fear and I opened up and was received. That felt funny. Never in my years did I flow in a moment that was ruined by not having enough time. I wish I could have stopped all time and space so we could have just sat there going through each other's mental rolodex over a few bottles of wine but I knew that wasn't possible.

I learned that she is fallible, prone to many mistakes, a mere mortal woman and a woman on the path of right ready to be loved. She is indeed mortal, (I checked) but I was still overwhelmed just being in her line of sight at that moment. Sun, moon, earth and stars had all crossed this woman in ways unimaginable and yet she still stood. Horrors and disfigurement of family ways were as routine as a hit TV show. Still there. There were many misnomers made and she had overcome every single one of them using her power, that gift that I speak of and I so admire and love her for that. I could have gotten down on one knee and asked her to leave all of the bullshit behind and just ride with me after learning of her that evening but I knew that I could not.

Not that I couldn't have asked her. She probably would have thought that it would have been a great plan to right the universe. We could have made babies to strengthen her army of spiritual balance to my logic and reason in the face of the damned but we didn't. We could have taken the world and held it captive in our creative banter for the next few decades, but we didn't. We closed our conversation that day and went back to our respective ends of the forest, distance being our only obstacle, neither of us ever looking back.

I had fallen in love and had my heart broken in no less than 4 hours. It was the only face to face conversation we've ever had.

I still have that moment and she still has this poem.

There are others... Poems, that is.