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Banana tree here! Bwana quick sit with me
Come sit with me friend for a spell
These damn tsetse flies are all out for our blood
By now we all know them quite well!

In African village we no got de fence
But when you share shade of  my tree
I find even though conversation may lag
Still half flies bite you and not me.

Possessions I have really don’t matter much
You need what I have just please take
For most of the food that I need grows on trees
To own stuff just leads to heartache.

It’s true that I may never purchase a car,
I also have no place to go
And why should I want to spend money on gas?
Bananas are fruitful you know!
 
And why in the world would I want a TV,
You think I don’t know how to talk?
A box that is filled with bright colors and noise
Whose predators my wallet stalk?

Some people think God is the friend of the white,
But I know that’s simply not true!
A white skin is simply God’s mark upon Cain (2)
Explains why white souls are all blue.

Brian Johnston
November 20, 2014

Poet’s Note:
(1) Bwana is a Swahili word for Sir.

(2) When I was in college living in off-campus housing in the 1960's, the University of OK decided to interview the landlords of off-campus housing units to see if non-white students were being discriminated against in this market. I happen to be home when they interviewed my landlord. She basically refused to honestly answer the questions asked by the students conducting the interviews and then after they left confided in me that she found it hard to believe that anyone could doubt that a 'black skin' was the curse put on Cain's decedents after he murdered his brother Able. I was shocked into silence. Most of OU's fraternities and sororities banned blacks as well in those times.

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