The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2023, part 14: Cesi Davidson

 

 

 

 

Morning with Sonia

by Cesi Davidson

 

These words are not from my memory. These words are from my despair.

There’s no shrapnel embedded in my side table. My hand isn’t filled with shards of glass from the broken window. There’s no smoke in the air or smells of gunpowder. The neighbor’s baby isn’t screaming from the relentless shooting that passed through the night. I’m uncomfortable because there are women in the world who fear for their life. I can’t feel cozy among the living. I reach for my companion, a copy of Sonia Sanchez Collected Poems. I read my morning seed thought from one woman

 

COME ride my birth, earth mother

tell me how i have become, became

this woman with razor blades between

her teeth.

 

In her collection of favorite poems (1969-2019), Dr. Sanchez shares her experiences of the world as a mother, professor, champion of the Black Arts Movement, and social activist. The tenderness, the love, the grit, and the turbulence of her work reminds me of our responsibility as writers. We have to turn this world right side up and remove the illusion that some of us are less than human.

 

I want to claim Sonia Sanchez as my fellow Harlem sister. My New York City village is a place she loved and mourned. I walk across 127^th Street towards Madison Avenue considering her guidance. Her lifetime contributions enrich the entire world. In the spirit of Dr. Sanchez, I give myself peace and comfort but a razor blade is correctly placed between my teeth.

 

 

Cesi (Cecelia) Davidson holds a doctorate degree in Speech Language Hearing Sciences from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. She’s provided therapeutic services for children with communication and learning challenges for over forty years. Since beginning playwriting in 2009, she’s written hundreds of plays and works of non-fiction. Critics praise her demonstrated broad range, fearless creativity, and cultural responsiveness. She’s founder and curator of Short Plays to Nourish the Mind & Soul, free public theatre in New York City. Dr. Davidson is the author of three anthologies of plays published by Aqueduct Press: Articulation, Fricatives, and Bilabials.www.cesiwrites.com; cesidavidson@gmail.com