"Zim": A Xhosa and Zulu word meaning ogre is a regular evil character in oral tales.
Why should it matter
whether the young one
seeking to piece the world together
is pink or brown or yellow or red?
whether it is my child or yours?
Seek we not to guide the hand,
to watch it trying this piece,
then that one,
and then the next
assembling the world as if anew?
Why should it ruin my sleep
whether these defiant castle-builders
who keep casting their eyes to the sky
waiting for their castles to float down to earth
have sharp noses or flat?
or long hair or short?
I should worry only when the dream is killed
when Zim’s shadow darkens the door of life
shatters the castle
crashes into a school
breathes foul-smelling smoke
into the clean and pure air
that nourishes the brain
and opens the path to the soul
I should rise up in anger
when Zim’s foot
shatters the castle
while drinking a cocktail of blood
on a Sunday afternoon.
For then I see the killing of life itself
a child’s eye’s glazing over
the luster now dying
that shone upon a star far away.
This shall always matter
a child’s dream
pregnant with promise
not to miscarry
at Zim’s behest
but to prosper into a sunrise.
This I shall always care about
whether the child be mine or yours
or pink or brown or yellow or red
for, without different colors
there would be no rainbow
Daniel Kunene (1923-2016) was born in Edenville, in the Orange Free State of South Africa, and spent the early years of his life there. He received his B.A. from the University of South Africa and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town. After leaving South Africa in 1963, he taught at UCLA from 1964 to 1970, and then the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 33 years. As a poet, short story writer, scholar and translator, he contributed tremendously to African literature.
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