Reimagining, Timbuktu
A building that can testify for us on Judgement Day
I want to go back,
To the libraries of Timbuktu.
Somewhere,
The Dewey decimal system dissolves itself into a dialect my great great great great great grandmother understands.
A library where quiet doesn’t exist,
Because we speak with our souls.
My prayer,
To step inside their walls and feel home,
To no longer feel like an erasure poem,
An anthology where most of the contributing authors' names are written in invisible ink.
I want to read about astronomy in the 11th century,
How we house God under stars with names He gave us,
How we call a mansion of stars a counsel,
How we seek counsel in the starlight of ourselves.
These libraries that hold records of our prayer,
A building that can testify for us on Judgement Day,
Where the walls say ameen after every prayer.
The Quran,
Written on tree bark,
Evidence that God gives with all hands,
And we learned to accept with full heart.
I want to read the poetry of the 12th century,
Let the storytellers inspire me,
Cause somewhere in those words I’m hoping are my ancestry,
Alliteration be my ally,
Metaphor my mother,
Simile a soliloquy singing to the soul of me.
I am somewheres child,
I am looking for the map my foremothers traced on papyrus to guide me home,
Praying I can read it.
I want to go back,
But time makes centuries singular,
And makes me the successor of anything my family once knew.
So I stand here,
Reimagining Timbuktu inside myself,
Making my ribcage a shelf,
Protecting my heart like its scripture dipped in gold.
Strengthening my spine so I no longer have a paperback.
I will speak an elegant word,
My last name is Bashir,
It means,
“The giver of good news.”
My grandfather wrote it in ink,
And sent it to my family like a love letter.
So I let calligraphy slip from my tongue.
My prayers answered,
For God wrote these scrolls in my DNA.
I am the griot I asked for,
My penmanship,
Longhand,
Stretching back to shake the ancient authors' hands.
This body,
The library that says I have been here,
And I will continue to be,
Standing,
Amongst everything that’s ever tried to dismantle me.
So centuries from now,
My daughters, daughters, daughters, daughter, will speak their names like ceremony.
Like questions they never had to ask in the first place,
They will not have to reimagine a past,
When they have my words to point them to the future.
So today,
I stand here.
Both my ancestors' collection of work,
And my daughter's library,
Bridging the gap,
I now know to call this body home.
Sadiyah Bashir is a freelance writer and poet. She took to poetry as a means of self-expression to becoming a two-time youth Grand Slam champion. Her poetry has been showcased on various media such as: Al-Jazeera, Apple, and UNICEF. She recently published a book, “Seven”, which explores trauma and triumph through the lens of Black Muslim womanhood.
