Chants Of Memories Poem by Stephen Kekeghe

I dance to this arena
Crooning the chants
Of yesterday’s storm
And tomorrow’s harvest

Memories may sing
When we weave
A painful past with
The present procession
Listen now, you hear
The whooshing thrum of memories
Retreating to the arena
Chanting like the noon birds
Of golden hamattan

In this arena of dance,
I have wailed to laugh
Sobbed to dance:

The chants of the gouts
Of salty sweat
Drifting from my brow
In the stagnant queue
Of the whiplash and the
Fifty hands of negligence

Now,
The dance is on:
Women wiggling waist
Of the present pace
Men in military march
Of the coarse past
You must sing
You must give a chant for God
As the spirit of the tribe
Inspires you to sing

A chant, a chant of destiny
A chant of brotherhood
Of alienation
A chant of great expectation
Of doomed expectations

A chant, a chant
I must give a chant
Of greater expectations
Of refinement
As a boy is made a man.