A Death Foretold by Kofi Awoonor

Sometimes, the pain and the sorrow return
particularly at night.
I will grieve again and again tomorrow
for the memory of a death foretold.
I grieve again tomorrow
cull a flower across the yard
listen to the birds in the tree.

I grieve again tomorrow
for a pain that grows on
a pain a friend of my solitude
in a bed long emptied by choice;
I grieve again this grievance
immemorial for
this pain
this load under which I wreathe and grieve

Yesterday I could not go
for my obligatory walk,
instead I used the hour
to recall the lanes, the trees
the birds, the occasional snarling dog
the brown sheep in a penned field
the dwarf mango tree heavy with fruit
the martian palms tall and erect
the sentry-pines swaying
in a distant field.

I believe in the possibility of freedom
in the coming of the bees in summer
in mild winters and furious hurricanes;
I believe in the arrival of American tornadoes
before I go to hunt
on that island of youth
where I smelt the heady smell
of the wild guinea fowl
and heard her chuckle for her child
in the opening light of an April day.

I believe in hope and the future
of hope, in victory before death
collective, inexorable, obligatory;
in the enduring prospect of love
though the bed is empty,
in the child’s happiness
though the meal is meagre.
I believe in light and day
beyond the tomb far from the solitude
of the womb, and the mystical might,
in the coming of fruits
the striped salmon and the crooked crab;
I believe in men and the gods
in the spirit and the substance,
in death and the reawakening
in the promised festival and denial
in our heroes and the nation
in the wisdom of the people
the certainty of victory
the validity of struggle.

Beyond the fields and the shout
of the youth, beyond the pine trees
and the gnarled mangoes
redolent of childhood and prenativity,
I am affronted by a vision
apparitional, scaly
lumbering over a wall
raising a collosal bellow.
His name is struggle.
He is may comrade and my brother
intimate, hurt, urgent
and enduring.

I will not grieve again tomorrow.
I will not grieve again