Today, I sat by the river wanting to listen to
whispers of marine spirits
but I was told the vessels that once held
them—cowries—had been driven into oblivion.
It was just yesterday I held one in my palm.
This artefact—white with grace—hid
mysteries in the hollow of its small body.
If you took a mortal and embellished
his destiny with cowries, he turned a god.
And when cowries visited the house of a pauper,
it made of it a palace.
Today, I hear another sound—sound of metals kissing
metals—in a different kind of crazed perversion.
You’d ask what drives them.
The same oil that drove cowries into oblivion.
It was really born to drive whatever stands in its way,
either to oblivion or to prosperity.
And I’m expected to choose which.
Behold the river, now dark with its mischief.
It catches the glow of the moon and throws it back into the skies;
for eyes should no longer see its depth—full of death and decay.
And I fear this tragedy might befall me.
So, I’ve refused to be like the river; I picked apart the bones of my body
and replaced them with metal mined from today’s earth.
I’m becoming a robot of civilization.
I only want to be driven to prosperity,
and it wouldn’t matter if I joined this crazed perversion.
This Poem was published in the June 2022 edition of the WSA magazine. Please click here to download.
Read – Weeping for You – A Poem by Naveen Pujani, Tanzania
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