Poetry Day

Chenjerai Hove is a Zimbabwean poet and novelist. His poetry collections include Red Hills of Home, Rainbows in the Dust and Blind Moon. Hove's writing provides insight into the horror and outrage caused by the historical suffering of rural Zimbabweans, particularly women and children. He is currently living in exile because of his political criticism of the Mugabe government. You can read some of his other poems at Poetry International Web. I particularly like Refuse.

You Will Forget

If you stay in comfort too long
You will not know
The weight of a water pot
On the bald head of the village woman

You will forget
The weight of three bundles of thatch grass
On the sinewy neck of the woman
Whose baby cries on her back
For a blade of grass in its eyes

Sure, if you stay in comfort too long
You will not know the pain
Of child birth without a nurse in white

You will forget
The thirst, the cracked dusty lips
Of the women in the valley
On her way to the headman who isn't there

You will forget
the pouring pain of a thorn prick
With a load on the head.
If you stay in comfort too long

You will forget
the wailing in the valley
of women losing a husband in the mines.

You will forget
The rough handshake of coarse palms
Full of teary sorrow at the funeral.

If you stay in comfort too long
You will not hear
The shrieky voice of old warriors sing
The songs of fresh stored battlefields.

You will forget
The unfeeling bare feet
Gripping the warm soil turned by the plough

You will forget
The voice of the season talking to the oxen.