Chenjerai Hove Biography

we were not
the only ones left;
the fig-tree stood by us.

we were not
the only ones left
until the sky refused us
a visa.

sweet dreams, dear
as we wait
for another flower to bloom.
...

When, brother, will you be?
How will you be?
For you are not yet.
A ‘boy' you are called
by milk-plastered lips
and you undo your hat
to bare that musty dome.
Yet a ‘boy' you remain.
Your unpensioned thirty-year job
- unpensioned even in kind -
you have faithfully groomed,
while bosses go and come,
renewing that boyishness,
inheriting you and the garden,
but ever ‘boy', never ‘man'.
Maybe a bigger garden will
turn you to a field-man.
Did you tell your boss
you have fathered, husbanded like him?
Does he know your son
lectures to professors in exile?

Booted on ancient buttocks
by weak-boned madams
who rob your humility
implanting slavery and hate.
Even yoking you
with manufactured allegiances,
yet your blood-left rhythm speaks
When history chapters allow.
...

i am the only one
you are the only one.

the birds and the rivers
sing to me,
they speak in your voice.

if i fall silent
you will be silent too.
if i fall silent
your wounds will be named silence.

i am a piece of you
and you are a piece of me.

the blood in my veins is you.
listen to the rhythm
of the stream of my blood
and the echoes from the hills,
mixed with gentle ripples
of the waters in the fast stream.

but with time
you will hear your voice
in the blue skies of my heart.

in the dark clouds of my soul
you will hear a voice
that tells the story of your forgotten voices
of birds long dead
of elephants crippled by guns
of orphans you do not deserve.
...

Full with child
a long parallel waiting: an anxiety;
Together living, dying
with nine-month torrents,
torpedoed with building wars
and swelling with fragrant hope
knotted to pain, pleasure and resentment;
Living, dragging on weary muscles
Till one day, maybe night,
raids rupture hope in expectancy:
Fertility perishing in thatched graves
to drive lead-like tears
down slippery times
and swallowed by history's gorgons.
...

This war!
I am tired
of a husband who never sleeps
guarding the home or on call-up,
never sleeping!

Maybe inside him he says
‘I am tired of a wife
who never dies
so I could stop guarding'.
...