Mount Mulanje! Poem by Isaac Maliya

What a stupendous creation
Yet land is alienated beneath you,
The landless stratum created around you,
As the monopoliser plucks surplus value
With an insatiable appetite.

You gaze at the crawling snakes
Biting the naked heels of pickers.
For protection and security is a loss
To the landed gentries, opportunists.

You stare at the little ghettos
That conglomerate with no aeration
Ailments finding fertile milieus;
Humanity succumbing to them
For descent huts are a loss
To the landed gentries, expropriators.

You sniff with a health nose
The polluting smoke vomited
By towering factory chimneys,
Imperilling life’s natural flow.
For remedies cut the surplus value
Of the landed gentries, profiteers.

You see the dependent humanity
Scampering with no land hold rights
Toiling for niggardly taxed wages,
For enough cut the surplus value
Of the landed gentries, saboteurs.

What an imposing creation
Oh! Mount Mulanje, the magnificent.
Bravo! Only if not in their league.
Redress the cried old order
Cut the hand of the profiteer
Alleviate the untold misery.

Dedication: To all those displaced whose
Land is what is now Tea Estates.

Wednesday,16th November 1988.
Chirunga, Zomba, Malawi.