To you, Kofi Ghanaba—
A true son of the Motherland:
Though dead, you live.

I
Last night the sax played.
In the stool house
A spirit died.
Men of the Motherland
Crowed Wesley chorales.
Our voice fled:
It fled from
The fearful
Slaughtering of desolate souls.

I am a toddler
Groping for an arm:
He said, one whose
Blood is black
Must walk bold.
My blood is black
But I can't find a foothold.

Last night the drums beat.
The spirit was dead.
We couldn't croak
To the seporowa tunes
Of a lone longing long-ago man.

Our slaughtered souls
Found not their voice
Amidst the desert bones.
We were a dead people.
A people without a voice.

II
Yet there are echoes of voices here
The linguist inclines the bottle
The drummer calls upon the bold ones
With encrypted messages
Thundering through the land.

the Kilimanjaro-conquering quantum soul of Nkrumah
the Akwapem-meandering mountainous mind of Madiba
the Tanganyika-twirling titanic tunes of the drum

Not all gatherings of clouds
Lead to rain.
Not all deaths
Are honoured by termites.
Adept fingers alone
Do not make good music:

The drummer stops
His flesh is consumed by fire
His soul swims with the smoke.