CALLING ON THE ANCESTORS 2008

CALLING THE ANCESTORS







It’s a two-tone life here; there are children,
Orphaned, living on the streets, or employed
By His Royal Highness, a fighting force
For freedom and fear. There are children,

Suffering, untreated, from malaria and TB.
There are clinics without medicine, hospitals without staff,
Schools without teachers. These are no secrets,
I will tell you no lies but look and listen!

In smart hotels, with their stars and commisars,
Are wealthy women, wedded to smart men,
And there are children; designer clothes, shoes that shine and skin
Proud to be on view, to be admired, even envied.

At the breakfast bar, they eat their fill
And then return for more. The hours slip away with the dollars
Until these royal families hit the town in their waiting Mazdas,
Mercedes, Mitsubishis and their magnificence.

From their new-build suburbs, inocculated
By private solar panels, generators and bore holes,
They drive to Relatives in the Rural Area,
Vehicles loaded with commodities unavailable in Eden.

At the fuel station, they show the coupons,
Bought online with foreign dollars, pounds and euros,
Long before the journey home began. On the trailer,
Spare fuel drums to feed friends in the fields.

There are politicians, dressed to kill,
Who hope to live by playing by the rules,
His rules, whilst mindful of the all-seeing eye;
The Father of the people, Liberator, Diplomat, Hero.

He is the Father of the People who cry,
Hungry for a father’s love, a father’s protection,
For food on the table and a place to sleep at night;
For the school fees that will give them wings to fly.

On foreign flights, the fat, bespectacled controllers
Settle down for the long haul; another term in office,
More conferences in the wider world, ensuring food in the belly,
Iron in the soul. Their children are sleeping safe at home.

They rest in turn, these politicians; bodyguards mark
Other passengers, the crew, the passage of time,
The movie whose diamonds are found and lost
In the silent, civil conflict that is their feeding ground.

It’s a two-tone life here; there are children,
Born, then dying. There are mothers,
Waiting, reaching out a hand of welcome,
Or is it resignation? There is still music;

There is music, there is mbira, marimba,
There are musicians singing of diamonds
In the border mountains and hungry river basins.
The ancestors, it seems, have not forgotten their children.

Copyright: Madresicilia 2008

LETTER FROM HOME

Letter From Home

‘The chickens stampeded on this aerogramme:
We will slaughter them soon,
They won`t do it again.’












The chickens were good news, despite their claw marks.
Small symbols ease my mind, too many miles from home.
Thoughts slip the net of British life and move
To avocados, small and tight on trees in January,
To young goats straggling the tracks, providing
Entertainment for the herd boys, meat for the pot.

Edmore’s back in school, another thing to celebrate;
Baba worked for months, moulding bricks for money,
Taking the term’s fees to the village teacher,
Walking proud but painfully.

The girls are ‘helping out at home’.
A nice way to say there’s no money for their fees.
They are clever girls and watch Edmore leave each day,
Honour his return and fight for attention, for stories,
Tastes of the learning Baba’s bricks bought for their brother.

Educated girls marry well, a bride price
Feeds the family for a year. These girls are wise,
Know that knowing nothing has a price to pay,
Repeat patterns from generation to generation.
They carry water and watch the red dust rise,
Laugh at the herd boys, pray daily for miracles.

I fold the aerogramme and pack my books,
Ready for another day of learning. My skin,
Once tight, is now soft around my bones.
I feel hunger on the tongue and in the mind,
Not in the belly’s ache and eye’s haze
Of twelve-hour days on maize porridge.

I take the tube, too late to walk,
And greet my white friends in the library.
London roars below me and in the warm room,
It’s easy to lose oneself in scientific theory,
It beats herding goats and making bricks.
On the tube later in the day, a poster:
‘There’s no honour in poverty.’

Copyright:Madresicilia2008

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD?

Album of Memories



The nights are hot here now and outside sleep,
My mind travels to red clay roadsides,
Silhouetted baobab trees and blue moon nights,
Where ghost bells ring and dogs bark in the yards.

I re-trace my unsure steps to thirsty stones,
Table-top temple of an ancient water-fall,
Where prayers for rain were well-received,
Shedding tears on the cheeks of supplication.

Shadowed by immeasurable distance,
I gaze at two small huts, the valley falling away to paradise,
The ground swept to bare-skin smoothness
By the leafy brooms of small children.

All are pictures in the album of memory.
They leave me longing, excluded from the present,
Searching for a future time that finds me
Lying in the easy arms of Africa.

Copyright: Madresicilia2008

WATER FROM THE WELL

‘I was drawing water from the well
when he suddenly looked at me-
I was so moved
That I let slip the rope.’

(Traditional African)

There are no wells in this village now;
Oxfam bore holes offer pumps and
Girls carry big buckets on small heads,
Bodies swaying on the slow walk home.

I work in the city, returning
On Saturday to tend the family field,
To hear stories around the fire at night.
I keep silent; city stories breed envy.

On Sunday afternoon, the bus
Belches black smoke on the road to Mutare,
And I recall your face at your mother’s house
As I said goodbye, my bag full of mangoes.

Empty hearted, I gaze at the hot valley,
Count the days to my next visit,
To the sight of you framed so neatly
In the doorway of your mother’s house.

There are no wells in this village now
But when you looked at me, I was so moved
That I let slip the rope of my life.

Copyright: Madresicilia2008

FIRST WIFE'S VOICE

FIRST WIFE

Don’t bring your second wife to me,
Her brats to my huts
To eat at my fire,
I am a woman with many cattle.

Don’t roam away to play
Games in the city
With high-heeled white women,
I am a woman with many cattle.

Don’t squander our money
On credit and crap,
There are mouths to be fed and I
Am a woman with many cattle.

Surrender instead to the fire
In my belly, the food on your plate,
The love at our table. Remember,
I am a woman with many cattle.

Copyright madresicilia 2008

VOTING FOR A FUTURE

VOTING FOR A FUTURE

Five years on and I still can’t vote;
A chief with children, a graduate career,
A son who dreams of his red road home,
Falling away to paradise, slipping into oblivion.

Five years on and I still can’t vote;
Living half the world away, Living Well.
There’s a penalty to pay for Leaving,
The word’s become synonymous with Betrayal.

Five years on and I still can’t vote;
Only the politburos and civil servants fit the bill.
I check Cheapflights online but they have doubled,
Like the US dollar of childhood, they are beyond my reach.

Five years on and I still can’t vote;
My wife has washed the party colours from her hands,
Wears jeans and sneers at my Longing.
Disenfranchised? A small price to pay for this Living Well.

Five years on and still a boy of 36;
We are the diaspora, the disconnected,
Held in disregard. My relatives eat from my table,
No place is set for me. We are Living Well.

Copyright Madresicilia 2008