WHEN AFRICA WRITES

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When Africa writes, she tells her untold story

When Africa writes, albeit in borrowed tongues

When Africa writes, she pours and drips and unearths

When Africa writes, she begins to heal her wounds

When Africa writes, it is not the luxury of just another book.

When Africa writes, she claims justice for herself

From the cruel injustice of a single story.

 

2.      When Africa writes, she tells her untold story

She will make a change to ‘the old truths’

That once fed and overfed history

She will cool the sweltering on the forehead

That wants to say, ‘it is not true.

When Africa writes, she claims justice for herself

From the cruel injustice of a single story.

 

3.      When Africa writes, she tells her untold story

Unveiling the mantle of old glory, held in white hands

She will feed the fat strands of ignorance

With the thin sieved knowledge

Like an infant whose pain is yet to be deciphered

She will shine the sun on the damp warps

And let her own wounds dry unhurriedly.  

 

 

4.      When they will say, it is in the books,

We shall say, we wrote the books too.

When they say, it is in a song,

We shall say, we sung the same songs too

When they say someone unknown said it,

We shall say, we know the unknown person.


The unknown person is you, whom we know so well. 

dispelling the darkness, around the moonless night. 


19th November 2021 

+254726179789 

essyjeru@gmail.com 

 

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