#PoemReview: Anguish Longer Than Sorrow By Keorapetse Kgositsile
Emeka Nwakobi
Kgositsile writes, as with most of his poems about the futility of war, its ravages and the indelible marks it leaves behind. He does so with everyday words, delivering at each turn, messages meant to retract the craze in the bowels of humanity.
Het sets out on this thorny road with a remarkable suggestion, impracticable yet an enticing solution. The poet in the opening stanza is of the opinion that we erase boundaries, walls, periphery, borders; whatever it is that sets us apart, that makes us war against each other, that creates that depth of division. Could we destroy the maps of religion? The maps of ethnicity, of race, of politics? Indeed whatever it is that makes us rage so senselessly, so that we can once again be humans.
If destroying all the maps known
would erase all the boundaries
from the face of this earth
I would say let us
make a bonfire
to reclaim and sing
the human person
Even the children are more or less damaged, meanings such as “home” are lost to them. But faced with daily horrors or even born into such inhuman conditions; they find meaning only in words that connotes gory, ominous words as, “refugee” “displaced” “border.” These words directly or indirectly are related to wars, crisis, catastrophe, anything tragic but good.
Kgositsile appeals to the human race in the third stanza of this poem. He ask that we purge these innocents, of all the ills we have brought upon ourselves. He ask that we let them have what is due to them. He says in a near whisper, let them have their future, the good things of life; for it is not their making that they were born in this part of the world, and if it were, perhaps we would have an empty continent by now.
Empty their young eyes
deprived of a vision of any future
they should have been entitled to
since they did not choose to be born
where and when they were
Empty their young bellies
extended and rounded by malnutrition
and growling like the well-fed dogs of some
with pretensions to concerns about human rights
violations
His advocacy, for the lives of children who seem to be the worst hit by the tragedies of our wars and insurrections, continues to the closing stanza of this poem. He ask again, that we consider their dreams, just about to bloom, but prematurely aborted. He ask that we consider the damage to their minds and overall wellbeing. Let the children have the basic things of life, as having a home doesn’t constitute a favour; he whispers into our ears.
Consider
the premature daily death of their young dreams
what staggering memories frighten and abort
the hope that should have been
an indelible inscription in their young eyes
Perhaps
I should just borrow
the rememberer’s voice again
while I can and say:
to have a home is not a favour
Keorapetse William Kgositsile (19 September 1938 – 3 January 2018), also known by his pen name Bra Willie, was a South African Tswana poet and political activist. An influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960s and 1970s, he was inaugurated as South Africa’s National Poet Laureate in 2006. Kgositsile lived in exile in the United States from 1962 until 1975.
