African tears are beautiful,
We were born crying before we knew time,
Our tears are beautiful like sun rays
like the moon and the stars,
So they fall like droplets of light
soundlessly staining our black skins with calamity,
Slowly, like rainbow sketches over the sun
Have you ever seen a black woman cry a pool of tears to her chest?
The way her tears rub roughly across her chest,
staining remains of her untold stories on her golden face
Stories of where she has been,
Of how she has smiled, loved and slept in tears some days,
until the morning time when she creates sunshine for her daughters,
with tears still, on her hands
African tears are beautiful,
They learnt how to drop from our fore-fathers' wrinkled eyes
during war and famine,
They learnt when to drop from saddened souls
held together by threads of black beaded necklaces made from reeds,
Just so we could pick the remaining crystals of legacy
to embrace and re-write stories from where were born.
African tears are beautiful,
We create them, we end them,
African tears are art,
Beautiful lines of tributes
to what will be, if we keep on crying beautiful tears
Seasons
Sunshine, sunset
Coffees and milk shakes
Sneezing, weeping,
Candy flaws and sweet bananas,
Umbrellas and storms,
Airports and park lane shades,
Sunshine, Sunset
Memories to ashes,
Africa melts into Asia,
Bamboo drums to Hulusi rhythms,
Smiles to wonders,
Journeys and tales
It could have,
It would not have,
It will someday
The hardest shell will
but softly break,
Until seasons change.
Who Are We?
One day
If my children should ask me who we are,
I will tell them that we are more than tags inscribed on identity cards,
I will teach them to take pride in the legacy of native names
before they could envy another man’s heritage,
I want them to know
that their hands are fireflies placed in a limitless universe
One day
If my children could ask me who we are,
I will tell them that we are art crafts
embodied with strength from the Zulu and Massai Warriors,
We are remains of the tears and bloodshed from Difeqane and Dimawe
I want my children to know that we are the golden dream
and heart desires of our fore fathers,
We are mason jars polished with sands from the Kalahari,
Bathed in the streams of the Okavango,
I want my children to forget bed time stories
And tell the world with pride
that we are left overs of Tshuwele and Sannanapo
But what will you teach your children?
We were born crying before we knew time,
Our tears are beautiful like sun rays
like the moon and the stars,
So they fall like droplets of light
soundlessly staining our black skins with calamity,
Slowly, like rainbow sketches over the sun
Have you ever seen a black woman cry a pool of tears to her chest?
The way her tears rub roughly across her chest,
staining remains of her untold stories on her golden face
Stories of where she has been,
Of how she has smiled, loved and slept in tears some days,
until the morning time when she creates sunshine for her daughters,
with tears still, on her hands
African tears are beautiful,
They learnt how to drop from our fore-fathers' wrinkled eyes
during war and famine,
They learnt when to drop from saddened souls
held together by threads of black beaded necklaces made from reeds,
Just so we could pick the remaining crystals of legacy
to embrace and re-write stories from where were born.
African tears are beautiful,
We create them, we end them,
African tears are art,
Beautiful lines of tributes
to what will be, if we keep on crying beautiful tears
Seasons
Sunshine, sunset
Coffees and milk shakes
Sneezing, weeping,
Candy flaws and sweet bananas,
Umbrellas and storms,
Airports and park lane shades,
Sunshine, Sunset
Memories to ashes,
Africa melts into Asia,
Bamboo drums to Hulusi rhythms,
Smiles to wonders,
Journeys and tales
It could have,
It would not have,
It will someday
The hardest shell will
but softly break,
Until seasons change.
Who Are We?
One day
If my children should ask me who we are,
I will tell them that we are more than tags inscribed on identity cards,
I will teach them to take pride in the legacy of native names
before they could envy another man’s heritage,
I want them to know
that their hands are fireflies placed in a limitless universe
One day
If my children could ask me who we are,
I will tell them that we are art crafts
embodied with strength from the Zulu and Massai Warriors,
We are remains of the tears and bloodshed from Difeqane and Dimawe
I want my children to know that we are the golden dream
and heart desires of our fore fathers,
We are mason jars polished with sands from the Kalahari,
Bathed in the streams of the Okavango,
I want my children to forget bed time stories
And tell the world with pride
that we are left overs of Tshuwele and Sannanapo
But what will you teach your children?
Nametso Dorothy Phonchi (born 1990) Botswana
Source: Kalahari Review
- Difeqane and Dimawe - Difeqane is a period of widespread chaos and warfare among indigenous ethnic communities in southern Africa during the years between 1815 and about 1840; Dimawe is a battle that was fought between several Batswana tribes and the Boers in August 1852.
- Tshuwele and Sannanapo - Names used in old Setswana language folk tales.
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