Son Of The Soil. Poem by Thabani Khumalo

I'm a child of feeling and carnal joy;
I'm a child of sandy deserts and rocky mountains;
I'm the sand particle and the rock stone;
I'm either a piece of land or a higher hill;
I'm the true son of the African soil.

To God of the sky;
To the god of the Arabic and the mosque;
To the god of Jesus and the object of religion,
Who is the father to the true joy of the spirit,
The God who gave us the heat of the desert
and the tidal rage of the salty sea.
Why have you determined it to be so,
that the spirit person be so far out of touch?

In this crowd of bodies I swear I find fuller joy,
It is in the way the flesh feels upon the flesh.
From this crowd of bodies I will open a creed;
I will worship every corner of a woman's body.

The ground produces flesh and I am flesh,
I live my life in the flesh and the flesh has no guilt.
I am indeed a true son of the African soil.