Before Long, I Am Gone

(When I am due) As the clock pulses impulsively to tag time along, All day long I load up the mounting hums like a banquet song, My head stuffed still, thronged nuisance teeming long, Like the tolerance of an idealist when aspirations prolong, But soon I may not be here or there_ I might be nowhere else to be found! Before long I’m gone, when mine story told right but wrong, And all I had gone too, gone forever gone! Aside from a memory of me that rests ever like a folk song’ Said to young'uns of a generation to another. But when I am due, keep local the chest to lay rest my simple skins in, Forget not to dig deeper a deeper hole I can fit in, And weep not my grant for thy placid rest But remember me as of ages ago and days gone long, When we’d go off at a tangent along; Thy page- dyed pieces among The rest I have known a poem. Before long I’m gone To put my feet up in a different realm Is it the noble milieu where the waters are calm? And God’s earnest hands basin me like an innocent child Or is it the ever burning hell Where I will blaze with vile flames like the wicked? Right now I’m not any right to gum myself to any, But when I am due, one of two roads will claim me fairly, And when I’m gone, let not sorrows fleece your jolly living, For life on earth is none much than a transient giving, One day you should see the valid reason of your time here And choose your ways the better way. And choose your ways the better way before long And choose our ways the better way before long! When I am due and my tale told to ears sharp, When I am too thin to feel the beat of my heart My tale attains unsullied ears like a melody line from a retiring harp, And though the symphony unplugged My song plays on still as I scream in silence top, And my voice louder than loud sound unheard still, I try to wake up to the pace of sound as it drifts in the air space But time is ticking on the hour glass, So let me gone if I be_ Even if I cross the line at the crossing like a P.E. race winner, I’ll be due as an outcast, who knocked on the closed doors untiringly, I wasn’t too heavenly, like everybody else I was only a sinner, So let me gone if I be forever gone; To a state where the body is too heavy, A place where only the soul can enter… And my ending then only God shall conclude! The writings of Donald Kuutsi (Zimbabwe) and Mpho Leteng (Botswana) Between the fiery panes ‘15