Mutterings of a Galamseyer

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They said gold would change everything.

That shiny dust beneath the earth

Could build homes,

Buy new clothes, new phones,

Forge new lives.

They said school is slow.

Hard work is for fools.

Rich men dig gold — so why not us?

And I believed them.

 

 

Now every morning,

I wake to the roar of changfang motors,

The choking fumes of generators,

The sound of hammers striking stones,

The hoarse coughing of my cousins

My classroom is a pit.

My pencil is a pickaxe.

I write my future—

In the belly of the earth.

My soul is consumed by gold.

 

 

I see the river —

Brown with poison, bitter as truth.

Once, I drank from it.

Now, it kills everything

Even the frogs have fled

And their song is silenced.

 


 All around, I see only empty fields —

No millet, no cassava, no cowpea

No grass for a rat to hide,

No shade for a bird to nest,

Only craters where food once grew

And stumps, scotched by greed.

 

 

We’re running toward gold

But walking over our graves.

Digging our own bellies hollow,

Trading our tomorrows

For a fistful of elusive glitter.

 

 

Once, I wanted to be a teacher.

Now, I just want to make it to thirty.

One day, they’ll ask,

What happened to this village?

And the wind will whisper,

They chased after gold,

And crushed their children underfoot.


They said gold would change everything

But gold is a liar. 




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