Poem: The acacia tree is not silent

It’s not an ordinary story

It’s the story of sorrow

The acacia tree stood alone in pain

No single tree in the vicinity

Not even grass grew nearby

Only the hot desert sand

Kept blowing away his tears

At night, slapping him with cold hands

Piercing him with tiny bullets of sand

The acacia tree has seen so many tears

Ooze from his barren skin

Only to be licked dry by the evil ants

That waited in his lap

Offering no consolation

Preying on his loneliness

Alone in the dark

He stood with the desert

A silhouette of life

A monument of time

Covered in thick scales of pain

Years of loneliness, tears and sorrow

After witnessing the genocide

Of his own kind

Men with axes

Mowing down his friends

His family and all of his kind

Leaving him behind

To bear the pain

Finally

Blowing out a huge hole

In his ailing heart

Apparently in a show of strength

A young man picked up his axe

And made a big cut

Inside his chest

It’s the story of years and years

Of deforestation

A single generation of human beings

Clearing away his blood (sap) line

In a matter of days

Wiping away his father, mother and children

Thousands of years of grooming, breeding and caring

Destroyed in a heart beat

He still weeps today

For his long lost tribal land

His piece of paradise

Wiped away by savages

It’s true

Trees have a heart

A long memory

And a short piece of advice

You reap what you sow

Mankind will have their day in the court of justice

For all the years of havoc

From Amazon to Sahara

All the deaths (trees)

Are on their hands

You have sap (blood) in your hands

©

Kenneth Maswabi

(13-06-2020)