Ises
I started this yesterday and am still in the process of writing this, its changed so much since the first draft and its interesting to see how much more it will change. Bless.
house of stone
the kinky crown on my head
has roots so deep they defy history’s textual limits
starting with my mother, my grandmother and her mother
and her mother and her mother and her mother
and her mother before her, before her, before her
to a time when women made rain with their hands,
taking a pinch of sunshine, covering it with six days of prayer
to open palms of cloud and thunder on the seventh.
across these sabbatical heavens,
my name is written in praise of a new day,
this is where my roots begin
sculpted by lineages of black hands
who built this house of stone
(from where i rise),
long before bullets and bibles scarred us
long before when we were bantu
not bantus living in bantustans
that caused bantus to birth revolutions
that soon became illusions of grandeur
when greedy gandangas* gorged their gluttonous souls
on house harvests
before markets opened
now stone becomes a house of hunger
abandoned by many into sunless asylums
where the moon never sleeps
and the sun never awakens
i pray for a long after,
a long after of before
i pray with my hands
as my mothers prayed before
i pray in these roots
for a long after of before
that saw tomorrow's suns
rising in my daughter's womb
and her daughter and her daughter
and her daughter and her daughter
and her daughter and her daughters
long after
for nothing can move this house of stone.
* gandangas - Shona word for guerilla fighters who fought in the liberation struggle
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