The Gift

You have a gift, a shining castle of words Somebody told me, and I was naked in the night How did you get this gift, this weave of tongue in flight I am jolted again, to the time I was thirteen Hanging from my father's death On a long, thin silence of fear. Memory is a rising sun in a bitter sea, Hear me now, the heartbeat of my drum Since the stag had bolt me through the woods I fathom no reason, except love of solitude I head the lead wires in my hand It was our favorite past time and the season for roads They cut through rocks to make them everywhere Nothing got the votes like roads And only politicians drove cars then So after the dynamite had destroyed the familiar We were left with broken bits of wires Every child knew how to weave them Into something beautiful I was always making baskets, completed none So I would not have to worry what to put in them I wove with my fingers to incubate my words. So here I was amidst the bush cries of birds Covered in ripe naseberry aroma from the eyes of the stag Of course I heard the thunder, saw the black clouds too But I am not afraid of rain, there are trees to shelter me That was when the lightning fell Sizzled on my wire and danced right up my arm Gbonka, it was not you, I know I would have been burnt or dead It was Bwana Shango Telling me to sing, telling me to dance Instead, I ran But he was swifter than the stag Went home slept, woke up with a song in my heart A peeling joy for justice Bogle in my left ear, Garvey in the right A novel sense of freedom, a willingness to fight And that is how my gift came My pen is double axe and flame.