Category: POETRY

It’s the Africa in me 
that loves the forest in which I wake, 
that sees and hears its fauna and flora and revels in their names. 

It’s the Africa in me 
that you hear in my spirited conversation, 
that shakes my shoulders as I sob my sorrows 
or laugh my insides, inside-out. 

It’s the Africa in me 
that keeps me reading poetry deep into the night 
and causes me to stroke the sinuous muscles of my striped, domestic cat 
and kiss the muzzle of my gently nickering horse. 

It’s the Africa in me 
that has taught me how to love 
and patches up the fragments of my soul after each disaster 
and renews my zeal and increases my understanding
in preparation for the next onslaught. 

It’s the Africa in me 
that has carried me 
from my first baby breath 
and will support me to my very last. 

I am truly a child born of Africa. 

(August 1999)

by Diana van den Berg

I was born in Africa 
In the war and poverty 
I love Africa my country 
I will save Africa. 

I was born in Africa 
The richest land for others 
The hell for our mothers 
I must save Africa. 

I was born in Africa 
Garden of dictatorship 
That makes hopelessness our ship 
Let me save Africa!

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt 
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies, 
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. 
Corpses are scattered through a paradise. 
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: 

‘Waste no compassion on these separate dead!’ 
Statistics justify and scholars seize 
The salients of colonial policy. 
What is that to the white child hacked in bed? 
To savages, expendable as Jews? 
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break 
In a white dust of ibises whose cries 
Have wheeled since civilizations dawn 
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain. 

The violence of beast on beast is read 
As natural law, but upright man 
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain. 
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars 
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, 
While he calls courage still that native dread 
Of the white peace contracted by the dead. 

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands 
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again 
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain, 
The gorilla wrestles with the superman. 
I who am poisoned with the blood of both, 
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein? 

I who have cursed 
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose 
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? 
Betray them both, or give back what they give? 
How can I face such slaughter and be cool? 
How can I turn from Africa and live?

Before I met you,
I felt that I couldn’t love anyone,
That nobody would be able to fill the void in my heart,
But that all changed when I met you…
Then I came to realize you were always on my mind.
You’re funny and sweet,
You make me laugh and smile,
You take away all my anger and sadness,
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,
More beautiful than any flower that I have ever seen,
You made me weak when I talked to you,
Then I started to write poems about you,
Now, I have come to realize that I am Hopelessly in love with you.