Listen Poem by Mariam de Haan

Listen



I have learned the importance of listening.
So many of us listen to answer
But some voices are so fragile,
That you need to pause in your pursuit of life
So you can talk to a stranger
To listen and hear.
I packed patience as I went home
35 days in Tanzania.

On 34th day I met a feminist Maasai.
I watched her weave
Taking a string and placing bead after bead.
'I was taught by my mother'
This skill she would teach her daughter.
'Mwanamke lazima awe na biashara.'
'A woman must have a business.'
To be able to pay for herself
'I got married at your age'
And what about your daughter?
Will you educate her?
'My daughter will finish school first.'
She said a son listens more to his wife than his own mother.
I wonder what feminist is in Kimaasai
Had this woman clothed with a smell of cattle
Who lived in a hut of cow dung
Had she ever heard of feminism?

But at times I couldn't just listen.
I heard her say
'The white people give us useful things.'
So I told her of all they've taken away
Who owns the plantations?
Versus who works the land?
Who owns the mining company?
Where do the resources go?
And why are the people who live by the mines still poor?
'It's also the government official.'
Yes I don't just blame the white people
I blame us who sit idle
Who think Africans are of a low position
Bullshit, black Africans do not need purification!
I told her of revolution
If we choose not to accept the situation
No official is stronger than the people.
Then my cousin butted in
'They give us things but we throw away the manual and use our brains.'

I visited a school of English only
Where you get a beating for speaking Swahili
I remembered the days Tanzania was a colony.
But they all agreed with the school
Claiming it was more practical.
Was it not Swahili that united our nation?
Will we allow our language to be ripped from our tongues?
The bookshops aren't filled with Swahili.
And perhaps I am a hypocrite
I have fallen into the hands of the market.
But I don't English
I hate my mind for replacing Swahili with this.
And yet I see hope for myself and those schoolchildren
Because we speak Swahili at home
Because our tongues continuously hold on.

'Utafikiri ramadhani.'
'It feels like ramadhan.'
Why, kwanini
'Kwasababu saa sita za mchana twasikiliza Qur'ani.'
'Because at noon we are listening to Qur'an.'
What she said ignited an internal light
Dear Muslims, why has the word of Allah been limited to a month?
Yet everyday we listen to the songs of a human.
Our lips are sealed tight.
We have created this distance
Where insignificant turns into importance
And our souls glance at us with a defeated stance.
I call out to it constantly
Please come back to me
Lord, forgive me.

At the end of the day we each have a story which needs to be heard
From the shout to the whisper,
But before you can hear
Change the way you listen.
I can't strip myself of bias
But I try to listen openly.
And if one day my ears expire
When they tire of being the shore
Where waves of stories settle and unfurl
If I turn deaf,
Please continue to talk to me!
I'll touch your body and understand the way your voice vibrates,
I'll watch your lips move like a sunflower watches the sun,
I'll smell the wind which carries our words and whispers,
I'll do anything to hear your story.

Sunday, February 1, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: listen
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