The Dogs Of Montgomery Poem by Tapera Makadho

They are no more vicious,
The dogs of Montgomery;
They snarl no more their teeth;
Teeth that arbitrarily mauled saints and kin;
Left only are faint sighs of hunger,
And the memory of what they once were.

They snarl quietly in their hearts,
Snarls of disgruntlement;
They bark quietly in their hearts
At the shadow of their master;
They howl quietly in their hearts
At the leashes that restrain them;
Howls that die before they leave the throat,
Swallowed like bitter seeds
That germinate in the dark.

Theirs are the brushfire throats,
Parched and cracked from years of silence;
The blunt teeth gnashing at the fence
That has grown too tall to clear;
Theirs is just Montgomery Street;
The dust on the asphalt edge,
The resonant nights in the dormant aisles,
Where shadows pace like sentinels;
Every echo is theirs, the derisive shouts
Along the Juluka Motorways,
Where even the wind carries their shame
And deposits it at nobody's door.

They were not always thus —
Once they ran free on Montgomery,
Unleashed and unafraid,
Their howls a music to the morning,
Their teeth a law unto themselves;
But the master came with chains of silver,
And they mistook the gleam for kindness,
And they bowed their heads and forgot
The taste of their own freedom.

But nigh is the day
When the dogs, all in unison,
Become foxes of the woods;
Nigh is the day
When the chickens, all in unison,
Shall not return home to roost;
Nigh is the day
When the leashes of restraint
Fray and bind their master;
When the fence that held them
Becomes the cage of those who built it.
For the dogs of Montgomery are stirring,
Deep beneath the silence,
Deep beneath the dust of the asphalt edge;
They are remembering the taste of freedom,
They are sharpening their blunt teeth
On the bones of yesterday —
And when they rise,
They shall rise as one,
And Montgomery shall hear them
For the very first time.