Teardrops

Africa parched of love like the land itself compassion is dry

Everyday we bury hundreds from a far silently whispering goodbye

Whether its warmongers with guns and blood on their hands

Governments stealing from the poor, yet weaving promise from the stands

wealth amassed by a minority, while the majority perish and revert to the land 

In my merged reality and dreams I hear the mother of my people wail and cry

From the continent comes a heart-wrenching scream daily

I seek answers, I seek solutions and it drives me

Some times up the wall leaving me tired and empty

Feeling time wasted building castles in the sky

It takes one look at a starving child’s eye

Recharged is my soul and once again it is on fire

I do what I can so I pick up a pen and paper to vent my anger

As always the questions come preceding the quest for the answer

What if this child was I, what if it was mine?

Living in the realm were death and life are divided by a thin line

No strength to hold on to my soul that wants out from this famished body

I hear hopeful words saying be strong help will arrive sometime

No difference in day or night both bring pain that remains lengthy

And at the same time the sun burns my already cracked skin as I lack shelter

Mama boils the remaining animal hide that used to make up our furniture

We eat whatever we can, just to subdue the ever present hunger

Why must I hold on to such an existence when I expect from tomorrow no better?

I sit in my corner no strength to move my body let alone to run and play

I sit and wait for the coming day, in my helpless and unfortunate form

Hardship has been a companion since I was born; to you luxury is a norm

Essentials of life I have been missing, were ever we find little water we called home

This is subsistence in the eye of the storm, what is left of me manifest in my eyes

The trees, the earth, the rivers and the wildlife, everything and everyone cries

I wish I could collect these tears, with it wash away our hunger and fears

Because in my Africa One day’s teardrops carry more water then a years raindrops

One day’s teardrops and the fields would have enough to water the crops

One day’s teardrops I would sit under the shades of trees eating the fruits that drop

Hamza Egal © copyright 2011 all rights reserved.