Do not dry up your tears

The following poem is written as a tribute and consciousness-raiser to/for African citizens (our women, especially) who have been convinced by pastors, priests, rabbis and sheikhs alike that the mortality of our children, our poverty, illiteracy, dysfunctional marriages & families, the lack of jobs & opportunities for our youth, the countless diseases afflicting our bodies, the depression of our souls, disillusion of our minds and the highly unstable states in which our societies exist is the result of our sins, our parents’ unrighteousness, wicked stepmothers, jealous neighbors, inability/refusal to pay sufficient tithe, not saying enough hail-marys, ‘‘satanic’’ practices and customs of our grandparents, bad luck, the devil’s deviltry etc.

It is about time our people stopped lending themselves so easily, and so readily, to this distraction, phantasm and silliness; and began to pay attention to the actual source and root of all our problems – namely, the self-serving, inept and incompetent fools who occupy the gilded seats of power in our statehouses, and are often to be found in severe cahoots with these scheming men of ‘God’ who apologize for this folly with the sheepish ALL LEADERSHIP COMES FROM GOD, GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS, and HAPPY ARE THE POOR dictums.

Both groups, in their duplicitous connivance, amount to little more than eye-sores on our social tapestry; and number among the many human-residues of our people’s colonial conquest.

Do not dry up your tears

Do not dry up your tears, woman –

Let those already on their way

Fall to the ground and sink there/

There’s not a word more to say

Except after their wet patches, to stare

But do not dry up your tears, daughter –

Gather up, those which remain to you

Roll up your mat

And walk away from this altar

Here, the only sacrifice

are your dreams, that fail and falter

Roll up your mat, and walk away

Your child has died

And her brother will die

And his sister must die

But do not dry up your tears, mother –

Roll up your mat, and walk away

Walk away

Because your feet are weary

From the journeys of life

And your thoughts, laden with worry

From untold pain and strife

So walk away, away

Away/

because the man who took your lover’s face

wears it now –
A black mask, to buy your heart

He has taken your son’s shadow
and cloaks himself in its darkness

See/ the sun won’t shine 
on your kin no more

People with no shadows
deserve no sun

Away, woman

Because those who have taken your bread

Will next come for your head

Walk away, my love –

Before they take your feet

Away/

There’s no room on this holy ground

Any longer, for you down to sit.

6^th/March/2017