The Destitute

        he withers away
        a ragged-man
        grizzled filaments of hair
        dot his gnarled face
        so abject so African

        cocooned in his sleeping rags
        hunched up is this lone soul
        --outcast of a civil town?

        some kind words--
        not the beggarly 'kobo'
        like the metallic
        glances thrown at him--
        may even assuage his agony

        ugh, Lazarus' fate
        too leprous for a loving touch.

       Little Hawker

        a large tray of fruits
        on his little head,
        he hawks about
        in the streets,
        crying out :" buy fre-ee-esh oranges,"
        even when they are dried up
        like his hopes
        by the terrible African sun.

        in the streets,
        the African child,
        the leader of tomorrow,
        how he hawks about!

       The Barren Field

        The new moon swells in the sky.
        Excitement grows in the breast of women.
        Fireflies twinkle in the eyes of men.
        Aai, the night is fertile!

        but she sits under
        the raft-roof of a crumbling hut, lonely;
        her man out there
        plowing another woman's field;
        her mouth filled with wormwood
        her heart bears
        a lament sadder than a widow's.

        Aai, the night is fertile!
        but her earth is like
        the plains of the savannah: dry, barren;
        here, where a child is wealth--
        the crown, the glory of motherhood.

        o woman, so inconsolable!
        are you the tree without fruits?
        are you the clouds without rain?
        is it you children sing of in the playground?