AUTUMN 06: Chenjerai Hove in Voices
Changamire
Tisvikevo changamire
Imwi munoti mukaita mweya
varombo vanonanzvira.
Imwi munoti mukafa
varombo vanovhunza 'mamuka sei?'
Imwi munoti mukakuvara
nhunzi dzinofa nemudongodongo
mavhara maronda nemicheka inokosha.
Tisvikevo changamire
munyika yenyu,
inoridzwa ngoma dzerusununguko
asi varombo vakasungwa
netambo dzisingaonekwi.
My Lord
Allow us to step on your lands,
my lord.
You, who farts
and the poor lick their dry lips.
You, my lord,
even in death
the poor dare ask about your health.
You, my lord,
whose wounds well bandaged
make flies die with desires.
Allow us, my lord,
into your lands
where drums of freedom deafen the ear
and the poor's arms are tied
with invisible ropes.
©2006 Chenjerai Hove
Chenjerai Hove has been a teacher, university instructor, and literary editor. He was also one of the founders of the Zimbabwe Writers Union. Well known and respected for his poetry and prose in Shona, it was his 1988 novel Bones (his first novel written in English) that won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. A prolific playwright, poet and novelist, Chenjerai Hove is known as one of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's foremost critics. He currently resides in Stavanger, Norway.
Writers
