Coarse, thick soil tinted hair,
Born with this quintessential soil caressed skin
Where melanin burns in abundance, from deep within.
Let the song sing, that
I am of African soil.
When my hand touches the earth beneath me
where the blood of our brave warriors still leaves a stain of their courage
So I may walk on it freely,
There let the song of the soil sing, that
I am of African soil.
When I am awoken by my heart’s voracious tendencies
which whispers to me, “Someday we shall belong”
when my heart cries for this home, which often does not see me as its own,
when this Mother country rejects me,
let the saddest of this song sing, that
I am of African soil.
When *uGogo holds my hand,
Her eyes elegiac whenever she speaks of my grandfather,
Let her tell me of their story:
The vivacious vixen and her chiseled empire of a man.
Let her song sing, that
That they are of African soil.
When I cross the border,
From my place of birth,
The *City of Kings.
Returning back home, to the Land Of The Brave.
Let my pride sing, that
I am of African soil
When I sit in a taxi,
With an Oshiwambo taxi driver,
And an Afrikaans woman, and I,
A little Ndebele girl,
Beside a Herero elder, with each strand of his grey hair an adage.
Each of us singing songs of our own unique stories,
Separately, but bonded by our lyrics of peace and unity
Of what we agree is our country,
Oh, let my heart sing, that
I am of African soil
When I sit down, pen and paper in front of me
And try to encapsulate the beauty of this Mother Desert,
In a quandary over how best to describe her,
And this continent she is so graciously planted in.
Cosseting the African people,
The great people of a continent so beautiful and protecting
Like the lioness who turns into
A blood-lust vulture
At any sign of danger towards her cubs.
Let them hear my cry, that
I am of Her
I am of African soil,
Of African strength,
Of Africa.
*uGogo- Grandmother in isiNdebele/isiZulu
*City of Kings- Bulawayo, Zimbabwe