Silent in a coffee splash on Nairobi’s floor
By mumbling devils.
How rudely has your dance of cocoa and coffee tastes
Been interrupted, at this moment turned into a
Morning of your blood!
We cannot bear our leadened hearts, shame
Weighing us down that your god finger has been folded
By sissies here under our greening sun.
Would you Kofi understand
Any fingers that splattered men’s blood & coffee
Like does a hen scratching asunder bush faeces?
Neither would we.
Your finger must be unfolded somehow, and a life
Communed in this coffee and cocoa tango.
A scorching Tero Buru shall therefore thunder I foresee,
And our choice bulls will stampede from here to Accra:
Awoonor take this to the Ewe bank,
Not a single Mogadisho bush will withstand the trampling hooves,
Or grow hardy enough to hide the fingers of scarecrows.
No, this will be no revenge, not a coward’s bile:
A Passover.
Your spilled blood smeared on our foreheads,
And your poems tattooed on our tongues
Will deliver us to life atriumphed, and we shall ride
Your monument home atop our bulls’ longest horns!
Then we will sip silently,
And nod in cocoa and coffee bliss
Erohamano, Migosi Kofi Awoonor.
Kofi Awoonor
No comments:
Post a Comment