DEATH, WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH

Look at the rags that once used to be three-piece suits,

Look at the tattered skin that once used to be crocodile boots,

The merciless sun up there burns off from the young cassava their roots,

We are dying off like flies on a leper’s foot,

Our dignity has gone down into the sand,

So out in the January sun we stand,

Naked and unclothed with each an empty stomach and an empty hand

Look at the little children crowding the taps,

Elders on the side heaving from empty burps,

Death, we have had enough,

Don’t take any more of us anymore

Death, why don’t you come in swift and gracefully?

Must you wait till both master and slave lie in surrender?

Must you shame both the good and the philanderer?

Must you take equally the humble and the murderer?

Why shake all of us till we are skin and bone,

Then take us home forlorn and alone?

Why don’t you let us die with grace and dignity?

The rain gods, unto you now,

We’ve given cows, we’ve given virgins,

We’ve given sheep, we’ve delivered dry crops,

What wrong have we done again?

What path haven’t we walked that you wipe us so mercilessly,

Make it stop please,

For truly death, we have had enough.