Our History, to pre-colonial Africa By Mbella Sonne Dipoko

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Our History,

to pre-colonial Africa

By

Mbella Sonne Dipoko

And the waves arrived

Swimming in like hump-backed divers 

With their finds from far-away seas.

Their lustre gave the illusion of pearls  

 As shorewards they shoved up mighty canoes 

And looked like the carcass of drifting whales.

And our sight misled us 

When the sun's glint on the spear's blade 

Passed for lightning 

And the gun-fire of conquest 

The thunderbolt that razed the forest.

So did our days change their garb 

From hides of leopard skin 

To prints of false lions 

That fall in tatters 

Like the wings of whipped butterflies.

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