we don’t always have a name for beauty…
who can remember anything in its totality, in its full specificity? i can’t remember what i was thinking two minutes ago when i saw this young sister raise her hand. or what i thought was raising her hand. we were in class, but she was just smoothing her long black hair, gathered in the back with one of those elastic things with little balls on the end of it that girls know the name of and use to hold their hair in place, and this young woman-to-be who reminds me of another person who was in a class i visited last year, similar skin and body shape, round face and delightful way of smiling with her eyes, she has, the one who raised her hand, has pink balls in her hair, and i can remember that, remember how her eyes shone when we looked at her and asked her what did she have to say and she said “nothing, i was just…” and then she made that gesture, a gesture that feels like soft september rain, warm on my face….
—kalamu ya salaam