Thursday, 16 December 2010

Me, myself, and John Agard.

Part-caste, quarter-caste,
old bones cast a crumbled shadow.
We are African-caste, that mother-caste
never cast us away.
I am everywhere-caste,
everything-caste,
Earth-caste,
wriggling creatures from the Devonian-caste.

There is no half-caste,
no half-eyes nor half-shadows.
We are all human-caste, mind-caste
mettle-caste;
the black is the shadow of the face
in the portrait; the white
the light.
We build the same picture

that points to an African Garden of Eden
where sin was only the dream
of a pitiful serpent
and the nightmare
of a Christian foot
trampling pagan elysium.

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