One, two… <br />It’s almost fifty <br />Like the seasons I come back <br />To haunt you, while you are sitting <br />In front of the cathode tube <br />Leaving you on your seat shifting <br />Is… <br />My malnourished frame <br />My born free life, never tamed <br />My still eyes <br />Staring straight into the lens <br />My strange cuisine <br />Of boiling roots and wild fruits <br />My sad story <br />Of poverty and lost property <br />Hot winds blowing <br />The earth bled off water <br />Poisonous snakes prowl <br />The day gets no shorter <br /> <br />Three, four, five <br />It is almost fifty <br />Inside your newspapers <br />There is my usual story <br />Of high child mortality <br />Lawlessness and banditry <br />Of fallen fathers and brothers <br />Of stolen past and present <br />Forty six, forty seven <br />Its now forty eight… <br />Forty eight years <br />Of economic marginalization <br />Disturbing history <br />And a forgotten people <br />You owe us justice <br />For brothers and fathers <br />Fallen at the airstrip <br />Their blood <br />Washed down the runaway <br />For sisters and mothers <br />Widowed by your guns <br /> <br />Forty nine, fifty… <br />Fifty years it is…almost <br />Since we got independence <br />All along we are stuck in the past <br />Successive governments <br />Have seen us outcasts <br />Our land <br />Dry, unforgiving <br />And pure wilderness <br />The “Northern Frontier” <br />How long should we die of hunger? <br />Get killed by bandits <br />Lose our children <br />Due to lack of primary healthcare <br />This is not fair <br />No schools <br />Poor infrastructure… <br />I can go on and on <br />Back to the 50 years <br />That you stole from us.<br /><br />PAUL OGUDA<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fifty-years-2/
