Body to Heart Align ©Dawn Minott

On By Dawn MinottIn Poetry

Beforeword: Over a decade ago, I embarked on what I considered my ancestral return journey to Africa, specifically Ghana. The instant my feet touched the Ghanaian soil, I instinctively knew I was home. This poem captures that profound body-to-heart alignment. A similar alignment occurred when I later lived in Nigeria, where I was given the name Omowale, meaning “the child has returned home.”

There is no feeling like this:
your body finally arrives
in a place your heart already knows.

A distant land, a hidden corner,
a whisper in the air,
a fragrance remembered from dreams,
all suddenly real, palpable.

Feet touch ground, soft and firm,
hands reach out, trembling, steady.
The air tastes familiar,
each breath a reunion with memory.

Eyes meet landscapes once seen
through the lens of longing,
now sharp, clear,
alive with presence.

Your heart’s echo calls,
a song long unsung,
now resounding in the rhythm
of footsteps, of heartbeats.

Here, the soul unwinds its threads,
each fiber of your being
intertwines with the essence
of this longed-for place.

No longer split between longing and being,
you stand whole,
every part of you here, now,
settled into the embrace of arrival.

There is no feeling like this:
a homecoming, a soul’s return,
where the body follows the heart
into the heart’s true domain.

The “Door of No Return” is so named because once Africans passed through it, they never returned. At this door, they were led into boats that transported them to larger ships for the arduous journey to the Americas and a life of slavery.

I first shared this as a poetic collaboration with David from The Skeptics Kaddish, who responded with a Sijo available at this link. 

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In creative solidarity, Dee

45 thoughts on “Body to Heart Align ©Dawn Minott”

  4. Oh my gosh Queen Omowale, what a powerful reflection about visiting the Motherland, 🌍 and I had no idea about the ‘Door of No Return.” So moving and truly poignant. 🙏🏼 I can understand the depth of your transfixation. I would be too, especially since one of the destination points was in my hometown of Charleston, SC. This post truly tugged at my heartstrings sistah friend. 🤗💖😊

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    1. Hey sistah queen. I’ve visited 3 castles formerly used to house Africans before they were shipped into slavery and being in those rooms, it’s palpable. On the day the pic was taken was the last part of the tour which is standing in that door of no return and for me what I felt in my core can only be described as ancestral connection. Heartstring tugging for sure!!!! Thanks for sharing especially re SC. A long painful connected history of people of African descent across the diaspora.

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    1. Thank you Mary. Music has often been my muse. I’ve written a couple poems i referred to as “R&B collab” along that same vein. Happy that’s the line that stood out for you in this piece.

      Cheers to a great week ahead 🙏🏽🎊🙏🏽

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    1. Thank you David!!! Many of my pieces come from experiences often my own but also of others as expressed to me. This is important because I write from what I feel. If I don’t/cant feel it I can’t write it. Enjoyed doing this as a collab with you and to get your take on the piece. Independent of knowing the backstory your responding Sijo was spot on!!!

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        1. Slavery lasted almost 250 years. It’s been 405 years since slavery was officially abolished. The 400th year was marked by Ghana as the year of return. Many from the Diaspora returned to mark the occasion.

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