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30.12.2009 Feature Article

Don't Cremate the Poet

Don't Cremate the Poet
30.12.2009 LISTEN

(For Dennis Brutus: 1924-2009)
Please,
don't cremate
the good
old
poet,
for like
banana peels,
corpses
also have
their own
peculiar tales
to tell –
Please,
don't cremate
the great singer
of the diamond-edged
dirge,
even now that
he has run out
of songs
and
breath;
Let him lie
solemnly still
at peaceful
oneness
with the very
earth he so
keenly
sought to
protect
and
preserve;
Don't cremate
the good
old
poet,
let him be
the direly
needed salt
of our Earth;
Delicately mark
his cairn,
make it
a place of
prayerful
thoughts;
Oh no,
don't cremate
this herald
of justice
and
peace,
let a clump
of milk-bush
be my
wreath…
12/30/09
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

Development / Accra / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com

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