There lies the open yard with graves of fetid dead blood,
Here sadness and endless cries of African Orphans have been forever buried,
There lies hunger and pain,
Emaciated eyes of the unborn yet to see
Where blood knows no age,
Alongside deep depths of silence, suffering, hopelessness
The ever crackling of expensive imported guns
The blood-flow contaminating the stream waters
Has now ceased
And now clean water can be drawn again
But with trembling feet of our African women,
Who draw water with legs that are ready to dart,
The sleepless nights can now relish on slumber
As grass grows on the graves that have stories untold
Where specters of violence, pain and inhumanity
Now peacefully rest.
I say! Look at the grave yard
Where hunger, poverty and illiteracy
Are now laid for eternity;
Look at the rays of a new dawn
Without the ugliness of silence
Listen to the birds chirp again,
Listen as the rejuvenated African drums
Sound at a distance
Look and listen at the start of a bright dawn
In the morning dew of the Black continent
For there lies the grave…
Epitaph inscribed with African blood
Shed with the silencing of guns,
Still we all look again,
At the rays of light coming from the east
By Carolyn Gatonye and Collins Qasim Odundo
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