Mama Africa Poem by Sammy Aswani Luyove

Mama, I hold for you,
Trust that no epidemic can spew.
Your rocky back has mastered
All trials of humanity,
Smashing all odds of calamity,
So, why should you cry Mama!
You can't count the pangs of hunger
That you have encountered:
From prolonged droughts,
To the dreaded mosquitoes;
Yet you mastered their dance moves,
And you made it Mama,
So just don't cry,
Because of the economic dilemma
Of this small flu virus.

Mama you've been called names;
That you eat apes,
That's why you contracted ebola
And your hands are dirty
That's why you caught cholera;
But what did they eat
To contract this coughing thing!
Like a drunkard you have staggered,
Waded and drowned
In your own mucky tears;
Like the floods of the Tana river,
But are you not still growing!
So mama, just don't cry!
Because of some virus called Covid 19.


From the slave trade in the west,
Colonial apartheid in the south,
The growing Sahara in the north,
To the animosity at the horn;
Your back has not broken yet.
Like an overburdened donkey you breathe,
And sneeze and cough daily
To be cowed by quarantine.
Just harden your back more
To learn a few new vocabulary:
lock down, hand sanitizer
...social distancing....
Then how do you die now!
Because of the corona epidemic!
A few graves will mound around,
But they shall sink and grow grass
And you will wake up again Mama,
And return to your grace
And mail Corona as RTS...
Returned back to the sender,
So, just don't cry Mama!
Because of Covid 19.

You are surviving graft
And bleeding like a cow's split throat
But Covid 19 shouldn't bring you down
And make you stoop too low
To beg from your opportunistic enemy.
Who has fake doses of vaccines ready
To trade with you; but crush you.
Don't bend over yet, and soil your hands,
There is hope and safety in the unity,
Among your daughters that hardens
Your backbone of food, trade and love.
So Mama Africa, you will make it
Just don't cry Mama.
Because of Covid 19.