Contents
Part one – Harvest of Tears
Part two – The Cannibals and White Dragons
Part three - Shattered Castle
Part 4 - Food for the Vultures.
Part One
Harvest of Tears
(1960’s)
*
It was a bad year
And then
Another three bad years
The years of harvest of tears and sorrows
Outcry and lamentation
We thought it would be over
And then it continued
And continued
And never seemed to end.
Then on the outlook
We saw things
We could never have seen
And places
We could never have gone
And mountains
We could never have climbed
And the rivers
We could never have crossed
With many things we never thought to see.
The many awful and silent nights
Troubled morning
Sunny days and lonely evenings
Troubled mornings and cheerless noon’s.
And the barracks became our home
Home for the many souls
Home for just few fortunate
Who only lived to tell it all.
Too young,
Too weak,
Too sad
To tell it.
The leftovers
Who were mostly children and women
The sons and daughters
The wives and mothers
The sisters and brothers
The toddlers and sucklers
The unborn
The fetus
Created for the war to take them
Even before they were born
Who never meet the world
Who died faceless
Miscarried
Aborted
Washed
Who never knew why
Who never asked why
They cried
They groped
In silent
In pains
For many nights
For the living
And for the flowers
Unseen
Which faded with the sun
In the heat of the lead exchange
Then…Then…Then …
In a whisper
A time shorter than a twinkling of an eye
Everything set to part
Everything falls apart
Rare and great names are gone
And we don’t know why
Beautiful ones
Handsome ones
Either raped
Or killed
In our very presence.
We the survivors
Never knew the pregnant of today
What it will give birth to
The next day
We were moving corpse
Who stood and watched
In our hidings
The going forth of these ones
To their early grave
And the soil had to make meal
out of their kidneys and hearts
They are wasted like dirt’s.
Faces that could never be seen again.
Frames that could never stand with flesh in them again.
These could have been avoided
We don’t know why it happened
Blood spilled
In the runways and streets ,
Paths and deserts
The leaves and mountains were stained with blood
The bones of innocent children
And their mothers.
The unborn and the suckles.
Men died living widows
Widows and children in tears,
In hunger,
In barracks ,
In footpaths,
In mountains,
In closed doors.
These bones were wailed upon,
But not gathered
They were not gathered
They were trampled upon
The bones of loved ones and good neighbors
Who became our greatest enemies
Our sons who became food for vulture
Who all died in our very eyes
And we buried them in roadways
With the metal nuts deep in their souls,
In their flesh
And their blood dried.
The silent fathers
The wailing mothers who see them
Go down to the silent cold grave
The world of the dead
Our sisters and virgin daughters
Who died young
Who died unproductive
Then our grandsons
Who became our sons
Because all our sons are gone
And our reproductive powers are gone.
The birds of the heaven screamed and screamed in confusion
In the midheavens,
Their places had been taken over by guns and bombs
And the earthly residents
The animals
Ran so wild
In confusion.
Their homes had been taken over by hiding soldiers.
We saw it from the beginning
In just a twinkling of an eye
Killing us without conscience
In the fight which was very fierce
And the slaughter great.
Seeing us gnash our teeth
In the midst of many losses
Losses of our loved ones
We bewailed them
Because we saw no man standing again
For long time unknown.
They became manure
On the surface of the earth
We saw them rot away in their numbers
They seemed not to be remembered
The healings for these would last for
A time and
Time and
Times unknown…
*
It all began few days after the seventh independent. For these short times peace had reigned, but not absolute, for there were grudges in many hearts. The Kandala wealth was actively expanding overseas and changing conditions in less economically fortunate countries of Africa were visible. Some considered the independence of these African countries as blessing while others feared of neocolonialism. Such economic prosperity might not last longer as they thought. Meanwhile, many African countries that feared of a reverse were crawling, while few others were actively seeking independence from their colonial masters. Kandala was the eyes of every nation because of the speed at which it was developing. It was called giant of Africa, African thin god, the king pin. This African nation was still growing from strength to strength with its army and was looked up to defend the integrity of the continent. It was as though that the independence granted to this African nation was a big blessing.