Portion - universityofafricanart.org

Stealing joys from wailing huts.
He took them
Before he took them
Both pleasures yielding
Different dividends daily.
He sold them
To those who sold them
To white coastal merchants
At the open mouths
Of the big rivers
Where it wastefully empties
Its sweet spring waters
Carried over hundreds of miles
Across hills, valleys and forests
So eagerly squandered
Like a bowl of rain.
Did the river know
That beyond the fish
Crabs, lobsters, otters and weed
It carried gold nuggets
Tumbling among the sands?
That for hundred of seasons
It has wastefully thrown
Sackfuls of stones precious
Some grander than adult fists
Into the hungry belly
Of the foaming sea?
The horseman did not know