Salla Kama Sallay

Sallay kama sallay!

Bosway!  Bosway!

Sallay kama sallay!

Bosway!  Bosway!

Sallay kama sallay!

Bosway!  Bosway!

Palm fronds in the sun

Have catapulted the earth dirt into the eyes,

In Wilkinson Road—in broad daylight:

As if to construct anger and rage

In slow-moving cars,

In Wilkinson Road—in broad daylight!

But no!

There is beauty in the horizon

Shining like sea in the road,

Wilkinson Road—in broad daylight:

And the blast of laughter from old cars

Will level with speed

The mountain of wastepaper journals

Flying out of car windows,

In Wilkinson Road—a road changing direction by the hour:

The Chinese gift of road jigsaws

To Salone.

And control of the road,

Of everything;

Is lost to cars and headless drivers.

Give us a couple of months,

And IG will sentence ACC,

And lack of progress will hiss at democracy,

Its uselessness and disabilities.

Give us a couple of months

And the jubilee star from the east

Will show a well cared-for toddler,

Checking the traffic—on a roller skate.

                                                          

Give us a couple of months,

And with eyelids that refuse to bat,

We will be playing chess, our favourite game

At the violet:

Saying the usual, man butu man wach[1]         

And again we will be saying, Dem say Bailor Barrie

Yu say Davidson Nicol?[2]

Give us a couple of months

And Luawa will be sacrificed for victory in 2012,

And the matter will be adjourned in court

Till thy kingdom come;

For fear of touching holy cows—in the old game of power.

Give us a couple of months,

And the women will drop their catwalk

For a salute from the men

Who salute women’s hips:

For they can’t see the grace

That gave birth to precious hips.

Give us a couple of months,

And there will be water shortage

On the edge of great waters—in the city;

And in villages where villagers drown the waters,

In the old old forests.

Give us a couple of months

And Bumbuna will refuse to visit certain towns and villages,

But will be exported for foreign exchange:

As soon as it can.

Give us a couple of months,

And the differently-abled persons

Will be abandoned in the farmhouses

Of the past—the farmhouses of the past:

Now that their purpose is done,

In Wilkinson Road—in broad daylight.

Give us a couple of months

And there will be no mothers to care for babies,

Because they will be at work with the fathers:

From 7:00 a.m. till 8:00 p.m.

In honour of precious deadlines.

                                                                     

Give us a couple of months,

And NGOs will show gross disparity

Between their income and the work they say they do.

In Wilkinson Road.

Oh Salone,

What a price to pay for development!

Give us a couple of months,

And a new sect will filter itself into the system:

And I dreamt that fire fell

On Churches and Mosques from hell,

And saved the nation from obscurantism;

Of isms from all schisms.

Give us a couple of months,

And the newly-found black gold

Will displace the weak from the land that they love;

In the violet hour…

And the new MP hates to write his name

In the absence of an old school,

To prompt them.

But must this go on?

No!  No!  No!

If independence means dependence in a new jacket,

Then this must go on.

If God did not make men and women equal,

With a mandate to reproduce their kind,

Whether a dozen in one night or not;

Then this must go on.

If the rail tracks were not sold out of love for the land,

Then this must go on.

If the headmen and headwomen did not betray the nation,

In the years that cried for a jubilee prize,

Then this must go on.

If parents did not wear their children’s trousers,

In the year that cried for a jubilee,

To the end that they stole their children’s spouses sometimes,

Then this must go on.

If the academic giants did not sell their birthright,

For a plate of foofoo[3],

Only to discover that it was all wind,

Then this must go on.

If mission schools did not go to hell

After changing hands,

Then this must go on.

If civil servants stop dreaming

Of wusay dem tay kaw na de i go it[4],

Then this must go on.

If Church leaders stop fighting each other

From corners of unholy testimonies,

Then this must go on.

If black friends of state

Stop taking black messages to State House,

In the violet hour like those black birds,

Then this must go on.

If the tribes ever come together

And forget their tribal agendas,

In a new dance involving all,

Then this must go on.

If citizens still in chain

Can allow themselves to be liberated,

In the dawn of the jubilee,

Then this must go on.

If children heed the thought that cheating in exams

Is a wrong start for the workplace,

Then this must go on.                                     

This nation needs a potion

That will make dry bones come alive in their original skins,

A potion that will make tasty flesh become sour—

In the mouths of vultures;

So those vultures can fly away to the land of no return.

We need a potion that will add flesh and spirit and life

To Wallace Johnson,

Who will come with a pen filled with blood,

From cowards to rewrite our constitution.

This nation needs that potion

That will kill loneliness born to marriages;

Contracted in holy houses.

But let the fire of purification fall and shake everything bone,

Let the fire fall and soften hearts of stone:

And unnamed roses will salute the rising stars,

In the maturing star of a nation.

Sallay kama sallay!

Bosway!  Bosway!

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[1] A Krio expression meaning one person is waiting to ride on the mistake of another.

[2] A Krio expression meaning, the most important thing at this time is money (represented by Bailor Barrie) and not education (represented by Davidson Nicol).                                                                                                                                                           

[3] Foofoo is the name given to a pasty food made from cassava by the Creoles.

[4] A Krio expression meaning the cow must eat from the grass within its tether.