Plate V: The Last of the Four Stars

A cleansing sword, a dove of the Black Continent!
An enduring rose, deserving of unceasing compliments!
Unlike his covetous contemporaries clinging onto the mace,
He rides the vast African prairies, his spirit moves apace,
Engulfing the African soul with long lost love,
With a good natured smile, he stirs the intellects grove,
Canonized in the eyes of men and held a sacrificial rood,
Breathing peace, he is the tower of good;
Where morals are taught, vengeance vanquished,
Virtue rewarded, and violence admonished.

Like an emblematic sparrow, in words and deeds,
His wings scatter prosperous seeds,
To save tomorrow from the mindlessness of yesterday,
In retrospect humility, he leads the way,
Holding the lantern in ripened wisdom,
His white garb illumines, the paths painted in crimson,
Denuding the barren land of barrenness,
And concealing buttocks from ridiculous bareness,
Wealthy with virtues, we are forfeit to extol:
For his life is a path we adore and stroll.

To his name, the South was favored from discordance,
Sown by guile across the continent, or the derisive lance,
Tearing nations apart, exposing incompatible enjoins,
Long covered like the embarrassment of scaling loins.
But it was not always so, for the South did bathe in disfavor:
Apartheid, evil as it may seem, was yesterday’s savor
To a bitter toast of oppression, where brothers walked in chains,
And their land dotted with tiddlers’ blood stains,
Neither has the past blessed the present immune,
But like the desert, the landscape remains a slave to dunes.

In Transkei a son was born, and groomed in the ways of a king,
In the footsteps of Digane and Bambanta, he cling’,
To the histories of his fatherland, Dalasile and Squnthi,
Hintsa and Makana, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni,
These were the warriors gone before him,
Their victory songs, even though a ream,
Was for him a sign of the strength of his roots,
Though young and under counsel, the routes
Had been cleared by his forefathers. The pull of blood
Could never be disregarded; their word was his word.

Years before Jawaharlal Nehru saw it fit to praise,
Weslayan and Fort Hare, tutored the star in the ways of the wise,
Ere being judged unfit to toe the line of blind obedience,
To iniquity, or sagged under the weight of massive sentences,
He was but a black child: princely but black.
But the face of white supremacy: an ugly mark
On the streets, turned peace into a thorny bleed,
Denied all the rights of man, enveloped by steeds,
The black man seethed, and moved aside to draw
From the pot of violence and not to tyranny forever bow.

To shatter the witch of whiteness, on which evil
Was painted, and hate for the black man deemed civil;
He hid under the shadow of Umkhonto we Sizwe,
Detested, hunted, and booked for the autocrat’s sizzle,
Damned should he turn his back to the state’s muzzle.
‘An African Patriot’, sacrificed himself to the struggle,
Determined to drive the white man into the sea,
And earn the prize for fulfilling his kindred’s plea,
Of equality, freedom, and liberty for all,
Or desist from violence and for his brethren make palls.

Even though the gory of Robben Island’s stature,
Ceased not to conjure up thoughts of torture,
The freedom of mankind proved too much a treasure,
To lose just for one man’s selfish pleasure,
‘I am prepared to die’ were his words to vile accusers,
Uttered with conviction to mock damned oppressors,
But with his sentence, the bottle of liberty was to be prise’,
To purge greed and hate from power, and chastise
The wicked for denial of the rights of man,
And give to the moral, the boat’s rudders to man.

The cries of the land, forced those wielding swords,
To open eyes and see the boils, hear muted words,
To clean their laurels from the stains of dark deeds,
And open vaults to provide for everybody’s needs.
Thus, for decades locked in the dark and grimy world,
Abandoned to grow old, weak, and bald,
His words fermented strife and agitation,
His deeds ignited fervent calls for salvation,
Till, freedom at last roared past the prison chains,
And the South broke loose from the slaver’s reins.

But for those who see the future unfazed by the past,
They have the power to save it from vengeance’s lust,
To rise in nobility among men and enjoy the fete,
Hosted for forgiveness and purity of their feats,
To stand tall among men and loudly proclaim,
Not in measured tones, but highly acclaim,
To hold equality, liberty and freedom esteemed and in poise,
Not jousted in favor, nor for jest’s sake pose,
That all men are equal before God,
And that none is shield from the punisher’s rod.

Plate VI: Exit

And so exit the four stars, the heroes of the land,
That had with duty marked the edges of the black land,
Do we read their writings?
Do we correct their wrongs?
Or in foreign lands dwell in peace and despise our seers?
But who are they to whom these lamentations I steer?
Take the mirror test brother and sister, do you see the mark?
The black skin for which you were enslaved is the mark,
But avenge not, let love be your peppered malice,
And not to brother pay dues for suppressed ire.

And to the four stars; whose histories we attune,
Truth be told, they were but slaves of nature’s tune,
Forfeit to sow fruits, juicy and gall,
Their rights and wrongs are written in this scroll,
And their judgment blares from the rooftop.
We; who now hold the mantle, must never stop,
Must not mourn the past forever, nor rejoice in it,
For the future is a dark demon, buried in the gravel pit,
Its skin is as precious as gold but its footsteps mire,
Let us uncover with care, or forever fast in fires.


***

Richard Oduor (c) 2010/2011