On The Day Of Your Arrival Poem by Isaac Maliya

That noise of the barrel
Rampant before your exit
Is said to have subsided
For on the day of your arrival
Spears turned into pruning hooks!

You deserted the “Patria”
Not in pursuant of peace
But white man’s letters
To lift-off thy land
But that day of your return
Swords turned into ploughshares!

“Bem vindo”
To a country of ideas
Of multiple concepts of peace
Of multiple approaches to life
Transforming its ruggedness.
But on the day of your arrival
Got smoke screened by the passions
Those of peace, real peace?

Dedication: To Hodges Chatepa,
and all returnees to
a new Mozambique.

Wednesday,7th October 1992.
Tete, Mozambique.