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by Staff Writer
We have become raven’s baggage
So we call out like a raven
In raven’s two voices
Fevered breath or our own wounded feeling
Our nightmares starts
Out of “there is no cholera in Zimbabwe”
Out of the dead men from cholera
Out of the dead women from HIV Aids
Out of the dead children from hunger
Out of the dead young adults from political killings
Out of little children become war soldiers
Out of the vengeance of Mugabe’s CIO
Out of the beast ZANUPF, police and army
Out of a country now locked in political gridlocks
Out of the lunatic moans of Mugabe against Britain
Out of the lunatic bile of Mugabe against the west
Out of the forthcoming breakdown due to this defiance
Out of cry songs that now stains the whole region
Out of the stench of South Africa’s silent diplomacy
Out of the stench of SADC and Africa’s denial
Out of a conspiring humanity
Out of this chaos is a journey that leads across Limpopo River.
We are footfalls walking through the dense forest
So many frontiers that we have crossed
So many shadows of so many at one side
And our silenced dreams on the other side.
The raven’s voice falls silent in the darkened leaves
The trees are the only ones who pray for themselves
For the moon always passes on top of them
And in the dark nights we wait for the moon
To tell us to venture into the hungry crocodiles in Limpopo
And I can see their red tongues stretching out
To lick the slime of our yoke and blood.
We are another one among these marauding herds
Limpopo River is now a mixture of silt, blood, bones and scars
Where other traumatised adults giggle chorus of grief
And every anguished cry feed these fat crocodiles
We are now bones within this river’s churn
Soon fish will have to negotiate us.
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