I checked this poem again today, and somehow, I felt something I didn’t feel the first time I read it.

Maybe it’s because I’m older now, or maybe I just paid more attention to what Senghor was actually saying.

Naked woman, black woman.

At first, it sounds like he is simply describing a woman. Her body. Her colour. Her beauty. But the more I read, the more I felt like he wasn’t just talking about a woman. He was talking about Blackness too.

And I loved the way he did it.

He didn’t describe being Black as something that needed to be defended. He didn’t make it sound like an apology. He simply looked at it and found beauty in it.

There is something about the way he connects the woman to nature that stayed with me. She becomes more than just a person. There is the earth, the sun, warmth, life. Her blackness is not something that takes away from her beauty; it becomes part of what makes her beautiful.

And maybe that is what struck me today.

Because sometimes, we grow up seeing beauty through a very narrow lens. Lighter skin. Certain body types. Certain features. Certain kinds of hair. We learn, sometimes without anyone directly telling us, what we are supposed to consider beautiful.

So reading Senghor describe a Black woman with so much admiration felt different.

He was not asking anyone to approve of her beauty.

He was simply seeing her.

And I think there is something powerful about being seen without having to change first.

I also noticed how sensual the poem is. Senghor doesn't shy away from the woman's body. He celebrates it openly. And I kept wondering where the line is between appreciating a woman's body and reducing her to it.

But perhaps that is another reason I kept reading.

Because the poem makes you look at the woman beyond her physical appearance. Her body seems to become a doorway into something larger Africa, identity, history, pride, and the complicated relationship Black people have had with the way the world sees them.

Maybe that is what I felt today.

Not just that the woman was beautiful.

But that she was never meant to be ashamed of the things that made her Black in the first place.

And honestly, I think that is what stayed with me.