FIFTY YEARS

One, two…
It’s almost fifty
Like the seasons I come back
To haunt you, while you are sitting
In front of the cathode tube
Leaving you on your seat shifting
Is…
My malnourished frame
My born free life, never tamed
My still eyes
Staring straight into the lens
My strange cuisine
Of boiling roots and wild fruits
My sad story
Of poverty and lost property
Hot winds blowing
The earth bled off water
Poisonous snakes prowl
The day gets no shorter

Three, four ,five
It is almost fifty
Inside your newspapers
There is my usual story
Of high child mortality
Lawlessness and banditry
Of fallen fathers and brothers
Of stolen past and present

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Forty six, forty seven
Its now forty eight…
Forty eight years
Of economic marginalization
Disturbing history
And a forgotten people
You owe us justice
For brothers and fathers
Fallen at the airstrip
Their blood
Washed down the runaway
For sisters and mothers
Widowed by your guns

Forty nine, fifty…
Fifty years it is…almost
Since we got independence
All along we are stuck in the past
Successive governments
Have seen us outcasts
Our land
Dry , unforgiving
And pure wilderness
The “Northern Frontier”
How long should we die of hunger?
Get killed by bandits
Lose our children
Due to lack of primary healthcare
This is not fair
No schools
Poor infrastructure…
I can go on and on
Back to the 50 years
That you stole from us.

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