Stripped of his crown
he stands
at the center of the town,
the crooks of his branches
heavy with enormous
warts.
Witness to the ages,
he has seen
generations,
ten, fifteen,
of warriors
filing by.
Often
homeward bound from battle,
vultures who had trailed the troops
perched upon his mutilated branches
drawing from their swollen crops
the hearts and livers of the fallen
still warm and quick
to offer them as nourishment
to those who stayed behind
recounting the vicissitudes of battle
Today
on these same warts
each year
storks come
to clack their beaks.
Fily Dabo Sissoko (1900 - 1964) Mali
Translator not stated, but possibly Ellen Conroy Kennedy
Source: The Negritude Poets, Ellen Conroy Kennedy (ed.), The Viking Press, 1975
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