The Scars And Tears Of Africa Poem by Nkwain Stephen

O behold her stand!
Behold the pale dry grass!
All her body is covered with scars.
Is this the once so beautiful Africa?
She is standing naked.
And who has not seen her nakedness?
Who has not seen her fallen breasts?
Those breasts that pointed at East or West,
Now points nowhere safe the earth.
Do not ask me how she is naked!
Who have not seen her sun-tanned face?
Who can't count Africa's ribcage bones?
She was clothed with wealth.
Now her wealth is in Europe.
Yes! Are not her artifacts scattered in their museums?
And now she stands naked.
Do not ask me how her breast has fallen!
She was glittering hope, but where is the hope?
Her children, her bringers of hope are watchdogs of her spoils.
Her children beg and borrow that that was hers.
Through windows her children peep the enjoyment of her wealth.
O Africa is mourning!
But why is she mourning?
Is she weeping for sons and daughters?
That is those that were jettisoned at the ocean.
Or is weeping for those that pass out in the barakoon?
Could she be weeping for those that toiled and were paid with whips?
No! She is not weeping for issues of the past,
Though her body is covered with the scars;
She is weeping for some issue of today.
O! She is weeping for her daughters sitting on embers in Kuwait.
O! She is weeping for her kidnapped sons and daughters.
Those kidnapped by demons of a foreign god.
Africa is weeping for her sons and daughters that pursue strange heavens.
O Africans! Come home and soothe your weeping mother.
O Africans! Come to your senses and cloth your naked mother.