A matchstick was burned centuries ago in Africa.
destroying the authenticity of our unbroken traditions
In the sonorous voices of colonial mountains
A family of Conakry bananas, mixed with plantains
Exploring the views of cultural villages in Lagos,
Stretched to the shores of Banjul,
Old women decry the mime of the wind.
Marching to Brikama Jamisa Forest,
held by an antidote of pain and poverty
received by a clan of grief and sighs:
The gems turned to stones, and our gold turned into boats.
Pale in the beauty of hallucination,
Our lands sustained blood
Purifying the ships full of peebles
spun to produce tales of African soups
Following the full-stop stop,
The fragments of African civilization broke.
with silken knitted Ivorian cottons
weaved by threads of Senegalese palm trees
Having been chewed and swallowed by the Mali Empire,
Roaming through bushes darker than dusk,
kept from the smell of corn and millet
They conquered our land and clans.
My grandmother's Africa remained silent.
The vowels of our culture are unsung.
From Yamoussoukro to Addis Ababa
We missed our hunters and bush meat.
Meeting at the junction of laughter,
We all laughed and laughed.
laughed, and just laughed!
Grandma sat on the palms of a tree, holding a kerosene lamp.
She gets an itch when she sees another religion approaching.
singing inside her eyes and ears
For the sounds of drums coming from the market
Merchants of sorrow produced clothes and tobacco.
To defame our horns and irons
Disrespected our gods,
destroyed our shrines, and changed us.
Having seen a gun and gunpowder,
a mirror, as well as herself in the mirror,
Grandma ran quickly inside her hut.
In terror, she sang me 1400 hymns.
Smelling rotten in her Fulani jewelry
Looking good in a tie and dye batik design
My 126-year-old grandma, laying on a mat,
Flipping out her traditional smartphone,
She slides through her gallery and opts for a selfie.
I burst out laughing.
Seeing a group of old women
Starting a group chat on WhatsApp
My grandma patted me on the back.
and asked, "Are we friends on Facebook?"
(Continue to REST IN PEACE, my beloved grandmother. I got my inspiration to write this poem by looking at my late grandma's picture)
destroying the authenticity of our unbroken traditions
In the sonorous voices of colonial mountains
A family of Conakry bananas, mixed with plantains
Exploring the views of cultural villages in Lagos,
Stretched to the shores of Banjul,
Old women decry the mime of the wind.
Marching to Brikama Jamisa Forest,
held by an antidote of pain and poverty
received by a clan of grief and sighs:
The gems turned to stones, and our gold turned into boats.
Pale in the beauty of hallucination,
Our lands sustained blood
Purifying the ships full of peebles
spun to produce tales of African soups
Following the full-stop stop,
The fragments of African civilization broke.
with silken knitted Ivorian cottons
weaved by threads of Senegalese palm trees
Having been chewed and swallowed by the Mali Empire,
Roaming through bushes darker than dusk,
kept from the smell of corn and millet
They conquered our land and clans.
My grandmother's Africa remained silent.
The vowels of our culture are unsung.
From Yamoussoukro to Addis Ababa
We missed our hunters and bush meat.
Meeting at the junction of laughter,
We all laughed and laughed.
laughed, and just laughed!
Grandma sat on the palms of a tree, holding a kerosene lamp.
She gets an itch when she sees another religion approaching.
singing inside her eyes and ears
For the sounds of drums coming from the market
Merchants of sorrow produced clothes and tobacco.
To defame our horns and irons
Disrespected our gods,
destroyed our shrines, and changed us.
Having seen a gun and gunpowder,
a mirror, as well as herself in the mirror,
Grandma ran quickly inside her hut.
In terror, she sang me 1400 hymns.
Smelling rotten in her Fulani jewelry
Looking good in a tie and dye batik design
My 126-year-old grandma, laying on a mat,
Flipping out her traditional smartphone,
She slides through her gallery and opts for a selfie.
I burst out laughing.
Seeing a group of old women
Starting a group chat on WhatsApp
My grandma patted me on the back.
and asked, "Are we friends on Facebook?"
(Continue to REST IN PEACE, my beloved grandmother. I got my inspiration to write this poem by looking at my late grandma's picture)
