To the African: No Guest am I
Why do you call me guest,
Where here I have my home,
When here my father lived and died,
My mother too, and a brother?
Their graves lie there within this City's bounds,
Where I myself was born,
My children too - all three of them.
Must they and I leave this land,
Be strangers to it
Because your skin is black and mine and theirs is brown.
Your folk came here some scores of years ere ours?
Why do you not hold out your hands
In friendship, and call me friend,
In love and call me brother,
And bid me stay and help to build this land,
Give me warm assuarance, dispel my fears,
By deed, not by words alone?
If love or friendship be not in you,
Let justice rule your thoughts:
Shame not the past nor the years to come,
That I am guest I do deny.
But when you'd drive me out how can I stay?
I lack the power, and now may be I lack the will
The day is late for change of mind.
Yet even now I'd change, for fain I'd stay,
If justice blest this land,
Of warm hearts bid me stay
And warm hands held me close
And told me tarry,
Tarry till the end of your days,
This land is yours as it is mine,
This is your home as it is mine;
No guest of mine art thou, but friend and brother,
This home, this land, of ours, our joined hands must make it great
On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 3:46 PM, augusto pinto pinto...@gmail.com wrote:
Leroy Veloso of Moira very kindly gifted me a copy of Brown Man Black
Country: A Peep into Kenya's Freedom Struggle by John Maximilian Nazareth
who also came from Moira, copies of which I believe were gifted to him by
the author's daughter Jeanne Hromnik. I found the book a little difficult
and the reasons for this are set out by the author himself in his preface,
if you can get hold of a copy.
But the book opens with a poem written in the best tradition of Robert
Browning's dramatic monologues and which I think is quite germane to many
of the controversies which Goans have willy-nilly embroiled themselves in,
controversies regarding identity and belonging. I dare say that not just
Goans who have migrated elsewhere, but also those who have migrated into
Goa from other parts will empathise strongly with Nazareth's thoughts.
The poem is named - To the African: No Guest am I
I'll type it out in the next mail.
Augusto
--
Augusto Pinto
40, Novo Portugal,
Moira, Bardez,
Goa, India
E pinto...@gmail.com or ypinto...@yahoo.co.in
P 0832-2470336
M 9881126350
--
Augusto Pinto
40, Novo Portugal,
Moira, Bardez,
Goa, India
E pinto...@gmail.com or ypinto...@yahoo.co.in
P 0832-2470336
M 9881126350
