Fat Cat!
You sit atop your pile of gold
of broken dreams
and promises sold
Don’t you know that it’s lethal
the power that you
hold?
Did you forget Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu
or how it feels to be hungry?
Fat Cat!
Get out of the concrete jungle
take off
your shoes
go sit under a baobab with your spine against its
trunk
and wait to connect with the wisdom of
the Earth that sustains us
Can’t you hear Mother Africa weeping for her lost
children and animals
for her polluted streams and oceans
doesn’t
She sing in your blood anymore
don’t you know its together we stand
or together we fall?
Fat Cat!
There is no more cream if the cow is
dead!
Fat Cat!
I am the umKhuhlu tree
standing as a woman on a battlefield
surrounded by dead bodies of loved ones
I am the wilderness
which you are allowing to be desecrated
horns and tusks hacked from my
body while I'm alive
I am
every consciousness that is staring out a cage
instead of roaming free in the
wilderness as is my birthright
I am being raised just to be shot by foreign cowards
and then my
bones and carcass sold
instead of decomposing into the soil of my Africa
to return home
Fat Cat!
I am a Child of Africa
don’t you see I have a gun in my hand
instead
of food?
Fat Cat!
I am a Woman of Africa
I carry the collective memory of years
of systematic rape of your wives and daughters
Why do you not protect us?
we are not pawns to be used in your
wars or bartered as cattle
Fat Cat!
What did you used to dream when you were small
when you imagined your destiny?
Did you watch the sun setting behind thorn trees on
the bushveldt
or listen to the drum of thunder in an
afternoon rain shower?
Fat Cat!
don’t you know you were born to be a
majestic African Lion?
not a spoilt domesticated kitty
purring around the ankles of the
morally corrupt, empire-building,
global Elite
You were BORN to be king
Half the countries on this continent fought brutal
and bloody wars
to shake off foreign oppressors
who divided us along imaginary
lines drawn in the sands
why have you now prostituted us to Asian countries
for our natural
resources?
why are you pimping us to another oppressor
with a terrible human rights history
and abuse of nature?
why are you allowing foreign syndicates to enter
our lands
and destroy our nature and
communities?
They do not belong here if they do not respect our
nature and our people
Fat Cat!
do you have no faith in us
or love
of us
we have all the talent and
creativity and resources we need
right here to
sustain us
Fat Cat!
Our mineral wealth is here to FEED OUR
people
not to arm our children with guns to go shoot other Africans
Fat Cat!
I am AFRICAN
have you forgotten you are too?
Inspire us to look inwards to Africa for
inspiration
not to the West
where the children of its broken
society are fed on pornography and drugs
nor to the East
where the government elite still keeps
the common man chained
whilst touting
the line of “best for the people”
but instead underneath us
to our roots in the deserts of the northern
cape
from the rolling hills of emKhambathini
to the majestic spears of Quathlamba
Fat Cat!
When you die
and your material form falls away
to pure consciousness
when all human-engineered boundaries
of race and class
and species
are revealed to be
the shackles on our ankles
keeping us chained in servitude
to the Evil that currently rules our
beautiful planet
when you look down on earth
and only notice Soul, not form or colour
will you not be ashamed of
what happened on your watch?
Fat Cat!
Please roar out and become our Lion…
Please
instill in our children pride in our natural heritage and inspire them to
protect it by your example.
Please
say NO to the trade in rhino horn.
Please
destroy any confiscated horns and ivory.
Please
outlaw hunting safaris and canned animal farming practices.
Please
safeguard our coastlines for the visiting whales.
Please
ban the longliners wreaking havoc in our waters.
Please remember who you were born to be.
by
Christine Jordaan, 2013
