Mosaic Memory

Frightend children under the baobab Of elders discourse playing At the deep edge of rites Of passages With no Atlantic dream. There is a beauty here Before the other world began Forgetting its origin And taste Of white milk in black breast Beautifully caressing The tongue Outside the jaws of greed. The time of pyramids Lolling On the golden sands Full with the jewels of history Civilizations gone And dead sphinx to come To Alexandria dreaming Far from the distant Wonders of Timbuctu. And after all that gain Suddenly a flood Of nothingness Carrying totems Of laughed animism On children's head Like weed. Stale rum sizzling In the heat Of deception Crackle lies The missionary and prelates of doom Smile when the boom Behind us burst Crankling chains Move to the shackle of the feet The heart coffled To the suddeness of defeat Stared at the deception That could not win Without the foul Practices bred in smoke filled bars Of cold desolate places making a wave. We come From banks of river Surety to insurance companies For new ships That carry us promisary notes Of golds to cotton and cane Replacing the earth hidden Treasures In a mother's bowels We come Dying To change the mosaic to come Into a place Where you know may know I am The father of the race.