“Found in Translation”

I come from a country

with eleven official languages,

where the first speech

was painted on cave walls

with the red ochre of our soil

and the charcoal of our fires.

 

A country of the Old People,

of Shaka, Cetswayo and Dingaan,

Smuts, Verwoed, Botha

Rolihlahla, Tambo and Sisulu.

The land of Saartjie Baartman

and spitfire sunsets.

 

I come from a country where

names were used to divide,

to oppress,

carrying a history of

separate development

that echoes in guttural growls

 

and clicks no colonial mouth

could ever find its way around.

I know the power of names

because I understand so few

in a country where many take

one name for the modern

 

One name for the traditional,

far removed from me.

I know the power of names

because I do not know so many,

cut off by barricades placed

in the townships of our past.

 

But I also know that

what we are called

matters less than what we choose

to call others we don’t understand.

Listening is a universal language,

just ask the artists of our caves.

 

This post is response to the Weekly Writing Challenge on names.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/writing-challenge-names/