Companion of Life: Poems from Zimbabwe

When terror of the monster roars

35 When the fog sets in And when we cry Only empty voices Vibrate with the timbre of death From a land laid bare A land greed has ravaged Scotched in the veld fire We all seem to agree That it is in today That we have lost the future When terror of the monster roars Who on this earth would not worry When terror’s long tailed monster Whose wings across the sky spreads Roars in thunderous voice? In a swoop It shuttles across the yawning Atlantic From the land of Dreamers, like a scavenger to besiege In one gasp It is Afghanistan bombed to a tinfoil Across the Gulf vultures descend on the corpses of peace Those scattered skulls across the Arab’s fields. South African’s ghost resurrects from the past In one hand A first of sea-weeds 36 In another A tuft of bilingualism While staggering from the hangover of racialism. Zimbabwe On its stone cobbled thoughts Comes crumpling Machete wielding conscience arching the monument Into poignant torment Red-eyed anarchy seizes the terrified moment With bullets and baton -sticks In a staccato of raving speeches Summer night For they sing, These children Gathered around the wet moon In the naked night Though bare, their wet feet Palter on these streets dancing, Celebrating the emptiness In us But their sorrows A flood Remind me of the time of Noah We Perched high on the zenith Watching the stretching of the rainbow ...