Farai Chaka

each time I am perched on the edge of forgetting | each time I get
tired of wishing let it be let it be | oh Lord let life be sunlight streaming
past my white blinds | let life be reminders that I am clay | most days
I am satisfied with killing ambition | and drying dishes on porcelain
counters | and putting my mistakes on replay | but still let life be song
forcing me into joyous praise | most days l feel untouchable as an
absent moon | until someone dies somewhere in my burning
country | forgive me for this tiredness I feel and choose | I watch birds
and read poems and write myself into abstractions | but my knees
cannot kneel to the floor | In my burning country | they pull cut bodies
from water wells | and crowd into clogged cities to work | and to scrub
other people's dirty floors | and all of this mean slam trying to see
Lord that nothing else matters | when a wound festers and threatens
to explode | most days I feel like a phoenix waiting to explode | but that
means nothing when everyone else is already aflame | oh Lord let me
be fine with this unknowing | and this stumbling through the days
blind | my ancestors carved iron tools and worshiped you into a
comforting fervour | and I have come nothing close to that kind of
ambition | most days I am content with the savour of ordinary
things | until someone dies somewhere in my burning country | then I

write poems