wondrous innocence
braids & ponytails double-dutching
twisting pavements bouncing playgrounds
bright shiny faces tease and flirt
strutting sass chanting names with
rhymes for beads & bowrettes
excited leaps to a joyous chorus
whips of fire spree of majesty
jewels of wazuri frolic
queens of fancy-yet-crowned
This poem get me a visual of my youth
Jumping rope in Baltimore city. Its home
Thanks Diva. As a child, I was amazed by how effortlessly the girls performed Double-Dutch. Also I never saw boys doing it. Maybe we couldn’t. I know I couldn’t. Beauty, grace, balance and energy would serve them well as future queens.
Thank you. I tried to give the feel of jumping rope –jumping, twisting, and chanting rhymes. Good times. Fun to watch. A cultural phenomenon !
“Little Black Girls” takes me back in the day when we played jump rope /double- dutch , we laugh and play outside all day. Boy, did we get some good exercise! A very nice poem