The Call of Africa (Ethiopia in the 80s)
In this direst of landscapes
Where rib cages impart photogenic smiles
Where visible skull bones outnumber curly locks
Where the vengeful Ra and the boundless Amun
Collaborate to evaporate life from this bleakest of land
As the gravity of footmarks etch journeys
On the jagged clay soil masking voracious graveyards
As maidens with pots on their temples
Scavenge the sweat of the earth to taste the wines of the land
Where goats graze in groups and militants raze in troupes
Where Injera bread is broken by bones varnished with flesh
Where there are no banquets nor feasts but sacrifices to the gods
As human flesh is feasted by famine and disease
A dismal civilization where mosquito bites ooze with pus
As flies outnumber the gravel of the earth
Yet, hope floats like a feather of a dove soaring to the heavens
For a Celtic intervention, that the white man with their deep pockets
Will metamorphose graveyards to granaries
That the call of Africa will reverberate to the consciences of man
For a crusade of the heart, a journey down the Nile
To sustain a future, for the innocence of Africa
poem by Dilantha Gunawardana
Added by Poetry Lover
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