Rhodesian Unification

Rhodesian Unification



Moldy snippets of transparent memories

Bright anecdotes and murmuring elephants

Swimming carefree in local waters and manmade lakes

- Kariba!


As I spin a series of web-like concertos

Into climactic synapses of clear thought


I wonder, and freefall 400 feet

Into my past, driven forward by the torrential waterfall

Of voices, ancestral markers


To settle in the Zombezi River

(the Kololo People call “mosi-oa-tunya”

or, “smoke that thunders”)


I revisit a village in the autumn of my youth

With wide-eyed sorrow and haunting joy


Huts of straw and necessity, with walls woven

In a timber wood orchestration, an emotional fabric

Over and under, chorus and verse


Beyond that, a man, seated, regally

In a folded chair faded green, as he surveys the night sky

Putting the stars to bed, one by one

His eyes, a reflection of my own, sharing my pain and loss

And deep hopefulness for a peaceful resolve

To my nation’s turmoil


As the amputated trunks and dry kindle illuminate

His face, and bespeak of praise for Makaha

And for the people of Zimbabwe


The Grass greens, and I recall

Our unyielding soil and forgiving crops

In my one tractor town


Tigere, my best friend, and one of the thousands of guerillas

Who were integrated into a national military faction

An involuntary contraction for ZANLA

(Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army)

A kettle for internal madness and cascading violence

That defined The Patriotic Front


And in a crystalline flash of repressed misfortune

The recollection of Tigere’s death deafens me

His killer, a soul-less 18 year old ZANU

With a 9mm Soviet

And one less bullet



The pool shimmers, and I embrace the image

Of a woman with child

Swaying in a sea of Zimbabwean Nationalists

Waving our flag in exuberance, in a stadium outside

Salisbury, during one of the many Independence Day

Celebrations held across my country, on my birthday

April 18th, Of all days



I remember the look on her face, and see the memory

In her eyes, every time I come home

And see my little girl’s smile, as she counts

The stars on a clear Zimbabwean night.