Plains of Murowa

MUROWA  

This is not the truth,
neither is it striving to become so.

Shadow of an ancient baobab
that has watched graves
pile into hills.

Wars of nations
strife of tribes [this damn word]:
knife to brother's throat
knobkerrie splitting Reason's skull

as wildcats, makora,
lick to shining bareness
the land upon whose belly
the blood of generations
has drawn the art of death.

This cannot be the truth;
shadows of ancient baobab

 peering

at the empty plains of Murowa

begging for more blood—familiar blood

of the village’s children

who roam the earth without parents
little killers left to their plains.

Someone send the burst of life;
command – someone – a season of rain
that will last another thousand years.

© Emmanuel Sigauke 2007

Together with some of my colleagues at CRC, I am reading my poetry to the college tomorrow, so here I am, going through old, weird little pieces produced some time ago. I am enjoying some of them, especially those whose meanings I can't figure out yet.... But in the above piece, " Murowa", I must have been thinking about the changes happening in Murowa, a village not far from Mototi (where I grew up), where a diamond mine is reported to have caused serious changes to the village of Murowa. Of course, that's potential development, the mine, co-owned by Rio Tinto,  has been thriving, but a great chunk of the village, especially the ones closest to the wealth, lost its original inhabitants, who were--reportedly--relocated to a farm in the Masvingo area....
Or perhaps the piece is not about Murowa; it is about Zimbabwe in general, at the time I was writing the poem, 2007. Yes, that's what it must be, as the following piece seems to suggest:

HUNGER IN MOTOTI

Empty

fireplaces greet

across the plains
as they hoot like owls,

sordid messages,  pointless lack
in a world pervaded by excess.
 

Mainini Grace’s promises:

Drought in the throat.

From the south, the cloud of aridity

Now threatens to rain the Kalahari.

Send money now,
send money fast.

Again, we are back in the villages; now it's Mototi--forget about Murowa. Now we are sending money: first, it was Western Union, next, Moneygram, and we have never looked back... The Mainini Grace mentioned in the above piece was extracted from Valerie Tagwira's short story "Mainini Grace's Promise" where the Diaspora person fails to deliver on her promises to help a sister's family; the sister back home is dying and Mainini is supposed to send some medication, or a least wire some money, but she never does so, therefore (cause-effect), the sister dies, and her daughter is enraged, wants to kill her aunt Mainini Grace, et cetra.

Perhaps these are the kinds of explanations I have to use to contextualize some of my poems; because often when I read, I just thunder on...and everyone wonders what's happening...