Rastaman

Walter Rodney One evening leaving the bamboo hall Stood me Impaled with questions Die me To the dead colonial dreams Wiped my tears of history And showed me Rastafari wading through the flood Making new footprints on old mud Giving Africa a second birth Telling heaven to a carnal earth All I had known before Was umbilical lessons from the drums My heart With the rhythm of languages lost The dart Of affliction quivering in the heart The totem of resistance to the frost Traced the dreadlocks to the Mau Mau Far short of Canaan and the Nazarites law Brought by Melchizedek from forest deep Rastaman walking while children sleep. Scree Bertram Who remember him Setting pearls before us Blankets made of bulrush Where the blackheart man could not find us Only the troubadour Could open the gates of Zion with his songs The Idren sang here and passed on O Bob, my dear Robert Nesto Marley The children have not danced so long The street is such a silent place Filled with weary feet We long to dance again The sound of the Rastaman We long to hear The sound of abundance of rain And see the Rastaman Standing in the lightning And giving praise Yet though the Black Starliner delays