Black Beauty

Black like night.
Black velvet pierced with stars.
Black like jet.
Patent leather shoes with lacy white bobby socks!

Top hats and tails .
A little black dress on Oscar night.
Onyx rings

Black tyres with white walls.
Sleek limousines with black tinted windows.

My favourite wine-gum.
Liquorice
Caviar

I have always told my children they are beautiful. They are blessed because it is true.
Black is, of cause a political term. No one is really a colour.

In England a group of National Front skinheads once pelted me and my ex husband with snowballs, whilst snarling the word 'Nigger.' I was pregnant and slipping on the black ice on the sidewalk. I remember the white snow against their Doc Martens. White against Black.

On the street in Port Elizabeth in 1990 a man nearly shot my then husband because he assumed he was assaulting me. (His hand was on my arm.) He called him 'Kaffir' and ordered him to move away from me. I remember that his gun was large and his finger was on the trigger. A white finger against black steel.

I thought there were laws in place and these and other names would not be heard again. At least not in public life. I thought people would keep their mouths shut and let these words seethe inside their heads, only.

Not so. In hidden places, like here, there is a freedom I have found to allow inner venom to spill out. To allow hatred to curl from lips and teeth and tongues, to curl into the air. To spiral into my ears, my mind, my heart.

They hurt, these uncaring, unfeeling, cold, stone, dismissive, sword-like, dagger stabbing words.
And White Tiger like, being a mother also, my teeth and claws are showing.

White snow
White lace at weddings
And smooth icing on cakes
White linen on washing lines
Arum lilies growing in glades
Warm white bread
Milk frothing from cows

Oh God
Creator of All

Piano keys play harmony

Black print on a White page
Charlie Chaplin
Black and White movies
Black ties and frilly White shirts...