The Veins of Africa …
Interwoven veins, crisscrossing these lands,
these savannahs, deserts, forests, lakes, streaming through the people of this continent of our ancestors,
linking the north to the south, the east to the west,
these veins, alive, infusing life, thumping through,
silently,
binding our peoples,
wrapped beneath the canopies of the humid forests,
buzzing with life in the cacophony of the bustling cities,
silent in the arid deserts, amidst the shifting sands of the dunes,
meandering between the mangroves, teasing the weeping willows, swaying in the wind,
these lakes, waters, subterranean rivers flowing gracefully into the oceans,
breathing new life to the plains,
at one with the seas.
The veins of Africa,
knitting us together,
despite the cruel slashing of these veins,
the plunder of these lands,
the desecration of the peace of the ancestors,
tearing these veins open,
pilfering the continent’s innards,
gold and silver and copper and platinum and diamonds and so much more,
so much more painful to the millions of living souls,
herded as cattle, packed onto those grotesque slave ships,
doomed to live and die in shackled misery, on continents away,
bearing the raw horror of the whip, the backbreaking labour in the belly of the beast of colonialism.
yes,
these veins have felt it all,
these veins that continually,
silently,
peacefully,
benevolently,
spread the precious gift of life across these lands …
our lands,
our continent,
Africa.
Scribbled Verse 