Belle Creole,

by Thelma Thomas

on Monday, January 30, 2012 at 11:48am

 

Portrait of A Beauytiful Creole .... Thelma Thomas

 

Daughter of La Louisiane

In your countenance you bring

The flags of many kingdoms,

Whose blood runs in multifaceted lines.

At once admired, yet maligned

 For your beauty and the song you sing,

Quick of wit, passionate and wise,

Your eyes tell no lies.

 

Born from unions that danced the quadrille,

Flashing limbs escape the flounces of skirts in Congo Square

Bathed in billows of frothy lace sewn by maman’s hand

And the perfume of sweet jasmine fills the air.

 

Release your tignon from its colored prison

And let your raven hair tumble

Dueling tendrils swirling and whirling in the breeze,

Swaying like Spanish moss in the Live Oak trees.

 

 

 Belle Creole,

Strike a siren’s pose,

Flick your Parisian fan,

Against your upturned nose,

An inheritance of polite aristocratic privilege

From your father’s land,

And the heat of a mother’s Senegambian village.

 

Joyful steps pull you into the rhythm

Sensual movements abound

When dusky drums sound,

Along the bayous and the narrow streets,

Or, is it only your lover’s heart that beats

With exhilaration and fretting excitation

 In anticipation of the cataclysm

If another you might have found?

 

Release your tignon from its colored prison

And let your shining hair sway,

Dueling tendrils swirling and whirling in the breeze,

Swaying like Spanish moss in the Live Oak trees.

 

Belle Creole,

Our mother, sister, daughter

Blood of La Louisiane

Dance with the heart of Créolité

And lead the Indigo night to day.

 

                                                                T. Thomas a.k.a. T. Dugas-White