THE LAND HERE

                  BY JOHN ODEY ADUMA

The land here is not for grazing

nor for colony,

nor for your habitation.

And you are not a part of the land here,

so are not part of our heritage and inheritance

Therefore, go away!

 

Carry your cattle out of the land here,

people of the sword, AK-47

and of violence,

blood and death.

Go away and let us have our peace.

 

You are strangers here,

You are not one of us,

So, you are not part of this inheritance.

We know you, but you do not know us

and you cannot know us

because we are unknowable

and too complex for you

to understand us and our ways.

 

Your ancestors did not belong here

And their placentae

were not buried here.

Their spirits are not in the land here;

Their graves and occult groves

cannot be found in the land here;

therefore, you are not one of us here,

nor are you a part of us here!

You cannot live in the land here with us

because our ways are not your ways.

 

You have been killing our people,

stealing from them, maiming and destroying them,

raping our women and disemboweling pregnant women,

to force out their infants prematurely

because as you have reckoned

we are not your people

and you are not our people.

 

Just as water and oil cannot mix;

just as water and petrol are never a good mix;

just as water and kerosine never do mix;

you and us can never, ever mix.

 

You are of the desert and from the far off East

and we are from the rainforest -

the land of the dark-skinned people -

people of the Great River, seas and the ocean,

where you do not fit and do not belong,

and here, you and your cattle cannot survive.

Therefore, go away to from where you 've come.

Go! Go, go away!

Go to where you belong and let us be.

 

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