Song of the Initiate by Patrice Kayo

Also Read

All the wives of my father

pulled my mother to bits

But their children cannot dance

It is I who have taken my father’s stool

And my mother has become queen

All the wives of my father my wives

and servants of my mother.

The mother of those who cannot dance

has never borne children

Her children are nothing but epileptics

The initiate alone with the chief.

If only I were a river!

I would roll down all silvery

And in the compound of the non-initiate

I would become a swamp.

I am only a dealer in pigs

and in chickens

But if you have any pearls or little bells

I will buy them.

The only son alone

Is sure of his father’s stool.

The panther’s child does not fear the night

I can dance all the dances

And my mother eats nothing but the flesh of sparrowhawks.