Questions hemmed on bewildered lips
inquire in tones hushed up by dread
why is Burundi dripping red ?
and why do hatchets like raging
windmills swing high and low-raping, gauging - maiming the earth
while laughing vultures , hail the morbid dawn ?
look at your corn fields
up in flames - and if a blessing
this may count, porcupines
by their dozens flee the scourge !
what easy pickings could there be
even to feuding kinsmen in the fray
alas, no stew for their kindred fold
While clansmen hacked each other cold !
Did the hornbill from Rwanda
not sing a dirge, when he stopped
in Bujumbura to quench his thirst?
He sang of the Kigali slaughter house
where kinsmen and tribes men
killed for naught - limb for limb
the devil's mischief - trouble in
paradise, the devil's delight.
Did you read the news today?
What did the headlines say to you?
Does anyone really care about
A checkered parcel on a map?
Why is musungu washing his hands
as if to say he has no hand in this?
who wrote the code of divided and rule?
who drove a wedge between two noble tribes
who in nuptials each others hand had clutched
while feasting as one , on the slaughtered beast
long before King Leopold's men acursed the land?
And we of the sable nations ,what dupes we are -
that in this future space, we bow as yet
to the whims of the naked gun, whose bloody hue
in every guise, has wooed and courted us to grave!
When will our mothers' mournful drips run dry
and let the sunlight in their eyes shine bright?
Alas ! The mirror has spoken an awful truth -
that the enemy indeed may lie within.
Woe then to the puppets that run the show -
shameless iscariots -
whose greed abates their rectitude.
Hope Kalé Ewusi ©
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