Shamba work
GIDRAF MWANGI 1992 (Murang'a)
Buy oh! You grannies the best seeds
Bring them in your good old baskets
Bless them in your ancient incantations
Bracing for the hope of bumper harvests
Dig oh! Sons of the mighty Muhia
Don’t be lazy like the Hare
Dredge the soil and with care
Don’t argue since the harvest you will share
Plant oh! Mothers of the lands
Place the seeds in well spaced mounds
Poke the soil with machetes for the seeds
Pause not until you are through with seeds
Weed oh! You daughters of Wanjira
Wallow through the soil deeper
Wipe the sweat trickling your bodies
Waste not your young sinews to groans
Harvest oh! You mighty men
Hack the maize stalks until they’re broken
Heave the bean mounds to the gran’
Hastily leave the land bare for planting again!
© GIDRAF MWANGI
*shamba(Kiswahili) = farm
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Submitted by GIDRAF on May 22, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 4 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXAX XBBB XXAA BXXX CXXC X X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 771 |
Words | 140 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 1 |
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"Shamba work" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/100582/shamba-work>.
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