Josephine Baker Poem by Mario, Lucien, Rene Odekerken

She danced before she spoke their language,
feet spelling out a future the world
had not yet imagined.
A gift from St Louis, barefoot in dust,
learning to laugh at hunger,
to outpace the weight of walls.

She ran-
from a nation that refused to see her brilliance,
to one that bathed her in light.
Paris opened its arms,
and she let the music carry her,
bronze and bare beneath the stage glow,
a goddess in motion,
turning bodies into rhythms,
turning rhythms into freedom.

She fought-
not just for a place in the spotlight,
but for a world beyond its edges.
A spy with silk and secrets,
passing messages in invisible ink,
whispering rebellion between beats of jazz.

She loved-
not just applause, but justice.
Not just fame, but a dream of something more.
She built a family across borders,
a chorus of children in every shade,
proof that the world could be one.

She never stopped moving,
never stopped believing
that art could be a revolution,
that a black woman's body unchained,
was the greatest act of defiance.