The Sea Eats the Land at Home by KOFI AWOONOR

Yesterday, something terrible happened. My heart was broken and my soul gutted. A dastardly cowardly act of terrorism and violence ripped through Kenya. It shattered innocent lives and their bodies into smithereens. Among those lives was one of my favorite poets and author.—Ghanaian-born Kofi Awoonor. In high school, one of the mandated English literature classes was a book of poetry by a selection of African writers " A Selection of African Poetry" by K.E Senanu, As a tribute to him, I would like to share one of his poems that I love.

The Sea eats The Land At Home

At home, the sea is in the town

Running in and out of cooking places

Collecting the firewood from the hearths,

And sending it back at night:

The sea eats the land at home

It came one day in the dead of night,

Destroying the cement walls

And carried away the fowls,

The cooking pots and the ladles,

the sea eats the land at home

It is a sad thing to hear the wails,

And the mourning shouts of the women,

Calling on all gods they worship,

To protect them from the angry sea.

Aku stood outside where her cooking pot stood,

With her two children shivering from the cold,

Her hands-on her breasts

Weeping mournfully

Her ancestors have neglected her,

Her gods have deserted her,

It was a cold Sunday morning,

The storm is raging,

Goats and fowls are struggling in the water,

The angry water of the cruel sea;

The lap-lapping of the bark water at the shore

And above the sobs and the deep low moans

Was the eternal hum of the living sea,

It has taken away their belongings, 

Adna has lost the trinkets which

Were her dowry and her joy,

in the sea that eats the land at home

Eats the land at home.