Village boy Impressions

Where are the showers?  That should be greening the fields?  The rains should be here A good month since.  Where is the morning dew?  We should be turning the soft loamy earth, planting seeds, tending the offshoots, looking forward t o the harvest already. Instead, we are trapped in this  rainlessness, this heat, and  lifeless brown.      Where is the new grass? that should be returning the cows, t o health and freshness? Where is the new saplings, That is the delight of the sheep and the goats? It is not lateness  when the fields  are brown in June. It is not lateness, w hen the stream is dry in August  It is the fightback, t he revolt of an ailing Earth.  The rainmaker is sick;  exhausted  from our plunder, our exploitation, our g nawing, burning, breaking,  pumping, dumping… From all of our greed. All of our poison!  Droughts where once were floods Floods where once were deserts And everywhere, are D...

I dig the earth for my saab and wokta. And for the sweet intoxicating pito, I tender the sorghum to maturity. Daily, I commune with the land, turning it gently with my little hoe. For there is no higher delight than tending things that grow;  no smell more exciting,  than that of boiling pito; no sight more pleasing  than that of new green,  and colourful blossoms,  in the sweet morning sun!  This was my life, my work, my joy. And for many ages, good old weeds  and late rains were my daily song.  So we lived in peace and quiet;  this land and I each for the other  in unending consonance. Then they sent a sudden death  nicknamed "Condemn", and plastered it over the growing green. It found its way into backyards and little rivers, poisoning the cowpea and the okra, and shriveling the sesame tendrils. All that was green and good  failed at their promise. It is death to all, this "Condemn".  Soon, I'll have no weeds to cut, an...