In a Free Country

They ran out of cuffs, but

with apologies for the inconvenience,

they carefully wrapped barbed wire

round the wrists of the political prisoners

who, as if in a ritual stretched

their arms out to the young masters.

The spikes strayed into the flesh still

and the prisoners marched, dancing as they

went into a little hut where all the free

people were herded and locked up like cattle;

The crimson prints marked the trail of tears

all the way to the camp, into the dark hut.

As they passed by the churches, the priests

closed their eyes and offered prayers for Muslims

and outsiders, calling them to Christ's salvation

and sang 'Bless our Messiah, long may he reign over us.'

The priests rode through the villages getting depleted,

determined to bring all heathens to the brotherhood.

They rode, skirting round the camp fences without

noticing the firm walls of metal thorns,

peering through the mesh, yet seeing no one.

They crossed their hearts for peace

as they passed mothers weeping inside their hearts

under the rough masks of laughter, for their

children dragged out of their bosoms,

chained like thieves and, like wild beasts,

kept inside the house of seven locks in solitary,

Those who were born to labour, to shred their muscles,

hummed sad songs as they turned out the soil,

tended the tobacco leaves, weeded the maize plants,

thinned the rice as blood-sucking worms stung

their weary feet in the waterlogged dambos.

Later, their masters received the coveted medals

from the highest authority in the land;

they were paraded around as master farmers

under showers of light bulbs and clicking shutters.

They too closed their ears to detainees' wails but

the swelling song of the plants as they ripened

under the groans of the labourers whose

children were made to dance under stinging whips.

On the radio, in the papers owned by the masters

we heard the story of our hard-earned freedom

repeated daily, hourly by the minute till our ears

gradually grew deaf and our sight impaired

by the daily flow of blood which the sun wept

and sought the cloth of the winds to dry it.

Source: O Earth, Wait for Me (Ravan Press)