Thursday, September 23, 2010

Depleted Mine by Lilian Dube





Living these lives, we let this wind
Do what it knows best
This dry African breeze
Blowing through our souls
Fanning the dying flames within
We mourn what we desire
But never will have-

We sit within this earthen cavity
Of an ageing mine
The prospectors have
Wept their farewell & gone
We know nothing-
But how to conjure flecks
Of gold in the thick air
Building upon swampy odor
Illusions of a future
Forgeries of the past…

Murmuring to our selves
We form on this mine’s dust,
With our chapped fingers,
Stars as those adorning
Our Eternally Sunless sky
 Dazzling as the yonder
Glorious kingdoms, whose songs
We hear enviously, at night
From a gaping distance, haunting…

The sun rises on the pure
& bloodstained alike
How pure is funeral song?
How red is Ceaser’s throne?
Be it crimson
in the reign of the deranged?
These rotting pillars of the continent!

Baobabs, trunks
That glimmer silver at night
 Yet pulps fermenting
trees hollow inside…

Our backs have been forever
Bent, weighed down
&so we sit here, our hearts
Hung on naked branches
To be numbed by a winter’s
Cold , wet wind-
Yet dreams shall last forever
&evermore: Of all the
Tarnished silver
& of all the gone gold.

1 comment:

Clemz said...

Its beautifu. I love the way you place your nouns, verbs and the other literary devices. However it gives me an eerie feeling and I grew goosebumps reading your piece, it reminds me of something haunting from the past- the past of Africa and I cringe when I start imagining where we will be in future. Great piece, I love it.

ShareThis