Behind The Quarrels Of Our Clan Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

Behind the clashes of our clan
Stands one woman who is as tall
As she is as thin and destructive.
Let us call her Getrude for I guess
That is closest, in names, to how she
Could be named.

So sly is she that she whispers into
Every ear and the lies she tells go
In and leave their prey so cold that
You can see the beginning of a wintry
Wind blowing on the head of the person
She last visited.

So wicked is her heart that it glows
Like the lava falling out of an active
Volcano. Like lava falling into the land
Her talk wiggles itself around each and
Everyone and the clan begins to shake
As if the earthquake she has conjured
Is imminent.

Everybody listens to 'Get rude' for she
Walks on stilts trying to be taller
Than the untruths she tells for she
Wants to hide that inside she is as
Empty as the tomb in which Jesus lay
The morning the women peeked into it.

She bears she news that confound us
Like a radio station in the bush when
There is a guerrilla war and spears every
One she stings with it as if it is poison
Coming out of the black mamba.

Her head rises in the grass like a mamba
For she dwells in a grass hut away from
Everyone so that every visit can be as
Unusual as the spit of the puff adder
For when it strikes you rub your eyes
Unsure where the devil is the snake that
Spat at you like me when I was playing
Hide and seek behind the mealie bags.

The clan stays there in the heat of Africa
Shaking as if it has been treated with an
Inner wind that came out of a stomach bubbling
With wickedness that fermented as she brews the
Next drink of marula it will gather around
At our next family tit-a-tat.

As you can see, I have run out of words to
Tell you how so good a smiling woman can
Bite each person's ear and leave it aching
As she walks away with the brightest smile
At this age of seventy. I always thought
confusion was a thing that lurked around
The brains of younger people for they
Are trying to find themselves. That this
Aunt of mine has arrived is obvious for
She will never leave the grass hut with
Her ears like antennae for she would
Have no news with which the deal the
Blows on the clan that has quarreled
Until it runs out of words to throw
As spears at each other.

I tell you this so that you can know
That if there exists the likes of her
In your own clan know that the DNA
Of such exists all over the world
For Jezebel is not just a biblical
Figure. She has been cloned and walks
Alive in this world.

I have dwelt on description for if
I went into examples you would see
A sack bobbing down the river with
A child in it and know that I
Am talking is because I am past
Madness for the truth as I always
Say sets us free only when we leave
The examples that confound even
The devil himself alone. This I
Have told you was the saying of my
Grandmother who always knew words
Can make us look reality in the eyes.