Haiku Poetry Inspired by a Poem, The Mountain
here are 12 haiku inspired by Emma Wakpi’s poetry, The Mountain
our children will know
how we lived for a short time
and how we failed them.
while we raze mountains
old folk die with our kastoms
and our future fades:
men bled this land dry –
drank it up in steel monsters
roaring night and day
somewhere in Mosbi
are papers with all our names
and what we were paid
near ruined rivers
of mud, littered with dead trees
where fish feed on filth
behind bubu’s grave
lies debris, rubble and dust
where two mountains stood
there lived a white man
and there lived three yellow men –
wantoks lived there too
steel carcasses rust
slowly in overgrown bush
where their work was done
more men cut down trees,
women whore, give birth and die –
some children survive
guns guard forest camps
and children no longer play
where bubu hunted
no school for children
whose sick stepmothers garden
where trees once towered
planes still land nearby
every few years, then fly off
with no passengers
from asopa.typepad
