Listen Compatriots! - Nontsizi Mgqwetho

Peace, Nintsizi, renowned for you chanting,

your poems are the nation's bounty.

No elephant finds its own trunk clumsy.

Oh peace, hen of Africa with sheltering wing!

Hen shepherding chicks

safe from the grasp of birds of prey,

the nation knows you, sky-python,

poets sneer but discuss you.

Upset Phalo's land, Mgqwetho,

overshadow nations and sap their strength.

Wild beast too vicious to take from behind,

those in the know tremble in tackling you.

Peace, dusky woman with the colours of pools,

your stench reeks like the river snake.

Mercy! Elephant browsing top shoots,

you've made a name for Mgqwetho.

Peace, Nontsizi, African maize tufts

waving beneath the breeze,

you stubbed your toe and felt the pain,

a slip of the tongue and they stomped on you.

Peace, Nontsizi, African maize tufts,

you strip poetry bare and expose it

and the nation's mountains face one another

as you sway from side to side.

Peace, dusky woman, Drakensberg snow

like morning dew on Mount Hermon.

I fell flat on my face looking up to the whites:

Oh I felt the cops' cuffs on me!

Peace, woman poet, Vaaibom's flamingo,

which thrusts its feet forward for take-off,

which thrusts its feet backward to land:

all the animals come out to bask.

Peace, duck of the African thickets,

ungainly girl with ill-shaped frame.

Oh Notsizi, African maize tufts,

with bow~Iegs like yours you'll never marry!

Peace, woman poet of nestling Africa.

Make way! Ach, I was used.

Peace, starling perched in a fig tree,

your poetry puts paid to feminine wiles.

Peace, Nontsizi, African maize tufts,

let spinsters wear bodices once again

for no-one knows your ancestors:

without skin skirts there'll be no marriage.

Where are your daughters? What do you say?

"We roamed the countryside searching for marriage,

we walked away from home and dowry,

now we're milked though calfless, living withnobodies."

What's education? Where are your sons?

They roamed the land searching for niks,

chickens scratching for scraps,

eager at dawn, at dusk empty-handed.

Peace, Nontsizi, match-stick legs scratched

from prophesying in thornbrakes;

Oh peace, poetic diviner,

watch out, the wild bird's flapping its wings.

Peace, Chizama, who eats her meat raw;

no-one knows your ancestors.

May the browsing elephants make it home:

they're lost if they sleep by the way.

Peace, Nontsizi, Sandile's daughter,

child of one of the Ngqika chiefs.

You were thrashed on the Ngqika plains

for praising chiefs and not commoners.

Oh peace, Nontsizi, African maize tufts,

woman, Africa's walls are throbbing

with the sound of your lovely parties:

Ach shame! All the lads wither.

The day of your death will darken, N ontsizi,

the commando‘s horse will lose its way.

Oh peace! And to you, Ntsikana,

who prophesied in thornbrakes.

Mercy, Awesome Saint!

This then is what Ntsikana spoke of:

little red people down on their knees,

producing spells when they Come to the Mpondo

Fiery tractors ploughed our fathers' land

and the black had no place to plough.

Mercy, Heavens! Mercy, Earth!

Mercy then, Sun! And mercy, Moon!

You keep our final accounts,

present your report to the Highest,

plead our case in elegant terms.

Where else will we go, Pool Crocodile?

---

Nontsizi Mgqwetho (20th century) South Africa

Translated by Jeff Opland

Source: Umteteli wa Bantu, 12 January 1924 [Available at New African Movement]