Born in the fountain of patriarchy
When a woman was for the eye
Not for the ear, but still you rose
Above the dark times of racism
Unto the poor black women in America
You soared above wiles of blind hatred
To carve a pie in the bourgeois theatre
With the spirit of a genuine revolutionary
O! Cicely Tyson, you’re a testimony chic
Blaring swiftly for the hope impaired,
Growing on the cradle of black slavery
And Market-mania sucking finely to
The last drop of black labour juice
For generations through your childhood
Seeing your kinsmen succumbing
To endemic wretchedness of black souls
But like a Phoenix you rose to get a slice
Of indisputable position on skeptical
Stage of Nigger-wry bourgeois theatre
O! Cicely Tyson , you’re a testimony chic
Blaring swiftly for the hope impaired,
Nourishing yourself on the sinews
Of poverty in the kitchen’s hell of time
Calculated to hold your kins hostage
With no room for your leg forward
Your back step a chance into darkness
Of four centuries of slavery’s brutality
But still you rose to defy all the odds
And sliced for yourself nine decades
Of life in theatre and service to art
Voicing out rights of the powerless
Women and those condemned
By imposed blackness on their skins
O! Cicely Tyson, you are testimony chic
Blaring swiftly for the hope impaired,
A Woman is no creature to live vanity
Of thoughts and warping of emotions
In the hearts of self-serving patriarchy
With no choice to serve ten children on
Arms than having one on conscience,
A woman is humanity solidified, stupid!
Setting forth at every dawn to make the
Earth a motherly home for all the live
Man, women, fauna, flora and the unseen,
A pedestal unto which you rose to fit
With passion and passionate dutifulness
Siring decorum to theatre of our times
O! Cicely Tyson, you’re a testimony chic
Blaring swiftly for the hope impaired,
Series of repulses unto your dreams
Never rendered you a heart broken girl
You persisted as a strong headed girl
Of the theatre, art and service to man
You taught them a lesson in racial logic;
A black skin is no limitation, nor white
Skin a mojo for defying human limitation,
The lesson is well taken dear baby girl ,
Dear daughter of Africa, Cicely Tyson
The dear daughter of blackness that was
Dared a swallow by America’s cowardice
Lo! You fought on and on in the gear of The Buffalo soldiers that live in America,
You’re a testimony chic, Blaring swiftly
For you girls of my time, battling hopes
Stung with snare of man’s shrewdness
Planting hurdles of selfish fear to bar
World’s progress to humanity of women
