Who has strangled the tired voice
of my forest sister?
On a sudden, her call to action
was lost in the endless flow of night and day.
No more it reaches me every morning,
wearied with long journeying,
mile after mile drowned
in the everlasting cry: Macala!
No, it comes no more, still damp with dew,
leashed with children and submission…
One child on her back, another in her womb
– always, always, always!
And a face all compassed in a gentle look,
whenever I recall that look I feel
my flesh and blood swell tremulous,
throbbing to revelations and affinities…
– But who has stopped her immeasurable look
from feeding my deep hunger after comradeship
that my poor table never will serve to satisfy?
Io mamane, who can have shot the noble voice
of my forest sister?
What mean and brutal rhino-whip
has lashed until it killed her?
– In my garden the seringa blooms.
But with an evil omen in its purple flower,
in its intense inhuman scent;
and the wrap of tenderness spread by the sun
over the light mat of petals
has waited since summer for my sister’s child
to rest himself upon it…
In vain, in vain,
a chirico sings and sings perched among the garden reeds,
for the little boy of my missing sister,
the victim of the forest’s vaporous dawns.
Ah, I know, I know: at the last there was a litter
of farewell in those gentle eyes,
and her voice came like a murmur hoarse,
tragic and despairing…
O Africa, my motherland, answer me:
What was done to my forest sister,
that she comes no more to the city with her eternal little ones
(one on her back, one in her womb),
with her eternal charcoal-vendor’s cry?
O Africa, my motherland,
you at least will not forsake my heroic sister,
she shall live in the proud memorial of your arms!
Leave a comment behind