Songs of Anisha
“We Signed Our Death Sentence,”
by Wafula p’khisa
The chickens will not come home to roost
They escaped from cages in Europe, and fled into the wild
They are wandering all over town, singing redemption songs
And dancing on graves of those they pecked and clawed.
But you need not strip naked and bathe in sand
or curse your children for no reason
When your dreams fail to hatch
When your cries of agony aren’t answered
We signed our death sentence
and this, my people, is the price.
You refused to heed ancestral wisdom
even in the gaze of a stranger’s counsel
Stuffed your ears with wax and opened mouths
to swallow every poison thrown your way
When the devil came, in a motorcade, singing hosanna
In a tongue too sweet to ignore
You tore others’ throats over their sacraments
And left them gather your souls into ballot boxes!
Why did you entrust them with our granaries
and slaughtering the only beast we’d hunted in the wild
Yet their hands smelt of fresh human blood
And their stomachs swelled with unaccounted chunks of last season’s harvest?
Was it because they are sons of this accursed soil
and a kinsman is never condemned, even after sinning against his people?
Why don’t they chorus and dance to songs of these ridges
Instead of being chauffeured about in tinted guzzlers to hawk slogans
Or fly over our caving roofs, to Dubai or Paris probably
Whilst we besiege filthy streets like vultures, trampled by the giant foot of hunger
Akho, my people: we signed our death sentence
and this is the price!
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