The Rat Poem by Thabani Khumalo

Constantly marveled I,
Constantly marveled I why to kill rat is so intricate,
It constantly has been in my conscience and retinence,
It constantly has resonated a voice squirreling within me
Of some creature howling out desperately in the wires of my snare
And its death takes so much positivism from the atmosphere
As though the sun rays are over a dim umbrella.

Constantly I am nagged by a murderous feeling
That I have taken life and the sins, I’ve constantly ignored.
My hands are red with cold blooded murder; willy-nilly
Taking life from this world with ease, but god who is
In heaven told me many things, that in the days of yore,
Where he was once young and free of sorrow
Were neither rats nor other rodents that nibble from the dark.

There never was baboon till there was human,
There never was rat till there was baboon,
So even rat longs to linger into eternity with hope
That he’d one day return back to the human state
Which he was too when he was young and free of sorrow.
Make it a must not to kill rats, for their death is as grim
And as grim as that of humans, but blame the mechanism of science