Aquah Laluah: The Serving Girl
The calabash wherein she served my food
Was polished and smooth as sandalwood.
Fish, white as the foam of the sea,
Peppered and golden-fried for me.
She brought me palm wine that carelessly slips
From the sleeping palm tree’s honeyed lips.
But who can guess, or even surmise
The countless things she served with her eyes?
this poem was my earliest introduction to the mysteries of the written verse. by the age of nine i had memorised it word for word. even today its descriptive fluency is the standard with which i measure my work.
This poem was written by Gladys May Casely-Hayford.
N.W.K. There is no disputing the fact that the poem was written by Gladys May Casely-Hayford, but Aquah Laluah is the pen name under which she published the poem in the book edited by Langston Hughes, Poems from Black Africa. Originally descended from Nova Scotians (Black Loyalists), the Casely-Hayfords, like my family, were resettled in Sierra Leone by the British before migrating to Ghana.