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.