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Our Daughter Returns from "no return"
"For they that carried us away captive required of us a song and they that wasted
us required of us mirth,saying sing us one of the songs of Zion"
Psalm 137:3 (KJV)
We kiss the sole of history
and sing an ode to the cast-iron "no return""conduit
as we bethink junctures of old -
The hand of despotism decreed;
lives were to be crushed,here in the dungeon
Our own betrayed us with a Judas kiss
and handed us over to the canines of the masters
Footsteps faded into silence
Across,faces were muted with tears
Vocal chords could not strike a note
We were held as bats
It so seemed our cry was in the rain
Elmina was never a home
Beyond the waters
laid an unknown land
we were to call home
Today,
the ocean has summoned us
Our welcoming feet dot the her shore
We are here to sing an unending chorus of akwaaba
to that daughter we once had
She returns from "no return" today
to our yawning arms
Akwaaba
NOTES
Akwaaba-- a twi word for welcome
No return--- an inscription on the last gate at Elimina Castle where slaves passed to the waiting ships
Elimina-- a town in Central region of Ghana. It is also the home of one of the castles.
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Comments
Ian.T
Tue, 2013-04-16 04:40
Kwabena
I notice that Akwaaba is a family of people in Africa, though you say it is the word for welcome, here is confusion.
That we tore your people apart in the old slave days I am sorry..
There is a way ahead for all, where forgiveness can be dealt out after all these years of oppression your people had to endure.
Now to the future, if only those that could would use the western worlds present where many have money and education, in that they could all get together as a people and make sure that their children and their children can face an Africa free of the present days greed and bad management.
I fear that the Chinese are flooding into your real homelands and taking over the economy.
We must learn from history that to let this happen is no good, just look at Israel a small determined race of people that don't take shit from anyone and have built a strong nation, Yours ian.T
.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..
William Saint George
Fri, 2013-04-19 06:20
"Akwaaba" IS welcome in twi,
"Akwaaba" IS welcome in twi, a language spoken by many Ghanaians who don't belong to the Akan ethnic group.
No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job. - TS Eliot
http://www.wsgeorge.com/