The dead are not dying.
We were told to tone down the sound
of our grief, to lessen the pain
of those who mattered, I think.
The wailing is still trapped within our chests
sometimes soaks our pillows at night
and the weariness of our souls cannot
be mascara-ed to the colour of joy
Perhaps we refused to cry, dazed-
numb our tears locked themselves in
Or that we thought we understood death
better, mature enough to abort
the festering that would follow
The puss has thickened, turned an ugly green
infecting everything and everyone in our way.
Also by this poet:
Batsirai Chigama (Zimbabwe) is a performer, poet, literary activist, and social commentator. City of Asylum described her work as “surprising, shocking, and skilfully deliberate work,” and “a breath-taking embodiment of grief.”
Chigama’s debut collection, “Gather The Children,” won Outstanding First Creative Published Book at the National Arts Merit Awards in 2019. In the same year she was an honorary fellow at the International Writing Programme (IWP) at Iowa University.
Batsirai is passionate about providing alternative narratives to those featured in mainstream media and her work with young people has taken her as far as Denmark and USA, performing and facilitating creative writing and spoken word workshops in schools.
Chigama’s debut collection, “Gather The Children,” won Outstanding First Creative Published Book at the National Arts Merit Awards in 2019. In the same year she was an honorary fellow at the International Writing Programme (IWP) at Iowa University. In 2021 she released her second poetry collection which won the NAMA Outstanding Poetry Book Award in 2022.
Batsirai is passionate about providing alternative narratives to those featured in mainstream media and her work with young people has taken her as far as Denmark and USA, performing and facilitating creative writing and spoken word workshops.