The Main Road To Riversdale Farm Poem by Deluke Muwanigwa

The Main Road To Riversdale Farm

As a tired crow would fly from Selous traffic circle to Ngezi Mine
at the 19 kilometre peg is a rock outcrop on Ngezi Road
There, the main road to Riversdale Farm comes alive

It takes a decisive step from the tarred road
to become a dirt road snaking its way for 4.5 kilometres to my home

Just off the tarred road it accommodates a cattle grid,
the rock outcrop with its hidden caves and mambas to the left
and after that, an old house foundation which has been the subject of much conflict

The local Chief, the local councillor and the local community locking horns over the foundation

Talking of horns,
the savannah bush on both sides of the road is grazing land for cattle

After a small culvert bridge the first homestead to the left, then another and another up to Twetwe River

That little stream which could cut us off during heavy rains, which spawned another poem called

Bridge to Riversdale Farm.

It stands there a stoic
Steadfast, heroic
Many souls carried
The singles, the married
The dead
The dread
Sometimes submerged
Floodwaters from streams all merged

The bridge to Riversdale Farm
Never does any harm
Taken for granted
Like it's not wanted
One day when she is gone
We gonna be cut off from home

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written on 21 February 2016

On the right, undeveloped stands for a distance until the first one on the right
then, the local Village Head's homestead introducing the right flank of homes up to the river

From the Village Head's homestead farming fields on both sides protected by barbed wire fencing

Then comes a cattle grid at the point of a communal bush pump borehole on the left
the main road to Riversdale Farm continues up to Twetwe River.
over another cattle grid, farmland on both sides up to the main farm homestead

Half a kilometre from the main homestead there is a left turn going past cornfields to reach my cornfield.

400 metres east along my cornfield is my farm house
home away from my city home
taken there by the only road
The main road to Riversdale Farm

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