We have come full circle,
it seems: burying our dead
right in the homestead now,
on the sites the living had built.
We no longer bury our corpses
over there and away from us,
overhung by weeping nkhadzi trees
just as the missionaries advised us.
We have come full circle,
at last: burying our dead
deep in the soil beneath us;
we climb over the mounds daily.
We no longer hang the cadavers
high in the trees away from scavengers:
hyenas, ants, beaks and talons;
just as the colonials instructed us.
We brought the dead to the homestead,
revived them as ndondocha,*
cut off their tongues and tamed them
to live in our granaries for ever.
Bumper harvests come out of them
and we know who keeps the most,
organizing them into one task force
to labour in the tobacco, tea and cotton estates.
We unearthed the youth for msendawana*
to skin them for their precious leather
and made purses out of the tender skin
for the most potent charm of them all.
We know who has the largest purse
accumulating wealth, and more.
Out of the mounds of our youth
sprout palaces, fleets and monuments.
Development did not catch us
by surprise, asleep or unprepared:
We knew about space exploration;
we had our own flying baskets.
The greenhouse effect is not news;
we know how to heat or cool the land:
Drought comes from a society on heat;
rain comes from a cooled nation.
But development came from the graves,
too full and closely packed to grow any more.
The protective nkhadzi trees fenced
each effort to force the grave boundaries.
We have now come full circle,
rightly so: living with our dead,
not only in nsupa or spirit houses
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