OUR AFRICA *for David Diop, ‘Africa’
This is Africa,
your Africa
With an arc of a back
Tilling with thick fingers
For new masters
The white flower died
to live differently
It always blossomed
amid pale and sickly
Black, Black flowers
The blood in your veins
once aroused you
to die for posterity
So with a love true
you died for our prosperity
But amongst us
sellouts emerged
selling Africa for a pence
like you in antiquity
in the malls of mercantility
Yes, this is Africa
Yours, mine, ours
But not the replica
of the one with warriors
Cowardice here reigns
There’s a hope though
that the warrior blood
now flowing in us
will not clot and rot
making us the impotent man
before a newly married wife
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem