IF YOU DON'T STAY BITTER FOR TOO LONG
Charles Mungoshi

If you don't stay bitter
and angry for too long
you might finally salvage
something useful
from the old country

a lazy half sleep summer afternoon
for instance, with the whoof-whoof
of grazing cattle in your ears
tails swishing, flicking flies away
or the smell of newly tamed soil
with birds hopping about
in the wake of the plough
in search of worms

or the pained look of your father
a look that took you all these years
and lots of places to understand
the bantering tone you used with your
grandmother and their old laugh
that said nothing matters but death

If you don't stay bitter
and angry for too long
and have the courage to go back
you will discover that the autumn smoke
writes different more helpful messages
in the high skies of the old country.


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