ABOVE THE FRAY I

KUBURABASU

Da kuburabasu green

Over the years of your poets' dreams

You patched up each fragment of green

From the broken kwamra that everywhere

Held to keep the country green

Then it was time to cultivate the savannah

To speak of green things in mystic chambers

Of voices holding out in the low savannah

And of kindling found among dying embers

For the baking of clay in the high savannah

The hiri would come with its winds

And you would be troubled by its echoeings

Of voices not of the laurabada winds

Wondering if too in such undertakings

Build towers out of trade winds

The sand will see its first morning

Of thatched castles, airborne as islands

Along cliff-faces this morning

And the city will be stone with multiple hands

Juggling severed roofs on a sky-less morning

So you leave us, kuburabasu green

Tropical ruins across this savannah

Hamlets blown ablaze by the winds

And for the morning

OndoBondo on the green

To the memory of Doreen Jiregari


From KWAMRA: a season of harvest