Writers Unblocked Magazine Volume 1/ Number 1

STANDING ON
MT. KILIMANJARO
BY PHILIP ALALIBO, Professor | School of Advancement
At this hour of no moral recompense
Of soured inhibitions
And gross reflection
I stand on these unprecedented heights
On this immutable monument of truth and
succour
Of strength and audacity
That serves as a grim reminder of what was
and what will
To proclaim the sovereignty of a forgotten
earth
Battered by the insatiable thirst for
hegemony.
From the glitzy coast of Cape Town
To the Pyramids of Egypt
From the tip of the Atlantic Ocean
To the ebbing of the Indian Ocean,
From the arid plains of Burkina Faso
To the gold fields of Ghana,
From Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zambia
To the bursting seams of Nigeria, Ethiopia
and Kenya
To the hinterlands of Uganda, Malawi, Congo
To the desiccated domains of the upper
plains
I mean, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia,
The continent shall rise.
Even the eagle shall be awed at its
preposterous apices.
It shall rise to its full potential
Like this mountain of 19,340 feet
I say,
The ‘Dark Continent’ shall awe all mortality
And become the connoisseur of world
commerce The veritable bride of many
suitors.
From the crested coast of the Great Walled
China
To the simmering coastal breeze of Indian
Goa
From the Everglades in the southern fringes
of the Americas
To the underbellies of the great rift of
Australia
From the frozen walls of icy Siberia
To the phenomenal vegetation of the
daunting
Amazon, Without ambivalence, incongruity
nor inaptness Africa, shall rise.
On this mountain of absolute heights,
Of incredulous mass,
I stand with this unassailable proclamation
That Africa, shall rise.
It shall rise,
To triumph over the dreary firmaments
It shall overcome the stigma of poverty
The endemic of maladies
The reputation of venality
The notion of parasitical actuality
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