© Anderson Reynolds
(From the unpublished collection, The Land Is Crying)
Famine in Ethiopia
Famine in Rwanda
Famine in Somalia
Famine in the Sudan.
An unending tragedy in the motherland.
I hear the silent moaning of children
Too weak to cry, too hungry to shed tears.
I hear the shuffling of multitudes of feet
In search of food nonexistent.
I see dust bowls rising from sun-scorched land
Where once food grew.
I see living skeletons
Passed beyond the point of brushing away the
Multitude of flies married to their faces.
I see babies suckling for dear life
Breasts whose life-giving sources have long dried.
I see mothers rocking lifeless forms.
I see my people dying in the thousands.
Yet death must have been welcomed.
Death was the least of their tribulations.
Death signaled the end of their suffering.
To the rescue came none of us.
Then the gods appear,
White skin, straight hair,
Pointed nose, thin lips,
From the sky and from the waters.
Magic and miracles are in the making.
They heal the people’s sickness,
Quench the people’s thirst,
Pacify the people’s hunger,
Shield the people from the bullets
Of the people’s own brothers.
Their own came not to the rescue.
The images too much to bear.
My head bends from the weight of shame,
Hopelessness and helplessness.
I cringe, my body shrinks,
The images too much to bear.
With great effort, I look at the starving faces.
It’s me multiplied by a hundred thousand.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
Shame on me
Shame on Ethiopia
Shame on Rwanda
Shame on Somalia
Shame on the Sudan
Shame on Africa
Shame on the black race.
Nowhere to hide.
Natural calamities brought not this disaster.
The culprits are in our midst.
Hunger for power has brought hunger for food.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
A race has lost face.
Ethiopia, some years ago.
Somalia, few years ago.
The Sudan, couple years ago.
Last year Rwanda joined the ranks.
The tragedy continues to unfold.
I ask myself, “when?
When will we as a race achieve respectability?”
An ancestral voice whispers,
“When the starving images become a thing of memory,
When the drive-by shootings cease to exist,
When we begin to contribute more than our fair share
Of college graduates and Nobel Laureates,
When we stop being a race of beggars,
When the ethnic wars become ancient history,
When, like Japan, at least one African country emerges
As a formidable economic and political force.”
In my anguish, I cry out in despair, “When?
When will we, the first people,
The people who gave birth to the human race
And civilization take our rightful
Place on planet earth?
When will we builders of pyramids,
Founders of Zimbabwe, rulers of great empires,
Inheritors of a great continent,
Recognize our true greatness?
When will we guardians of the Nile,
Custodians of the tiger, the lion, the elephant,
Realize our true worth?
When? When? When? When? …”