The Barricade Of Races Poem by Rasak Daramola

Careless of next year's hunger
This year the rice plants ripen late,
They won't be ready
until frosty winds begin to blow.
And when frosty winds came
the rain never stopped,
Mold grew on the hoe,
the sickle turned rusty.


Her eyes had no more tears,
yet still the rains came down.
Staring bitterly at yellow stalks
lying in black mud.
For a month she stayed
in a shack in the fields,
Picked what she could
when the weather cleared,
then followed the ox home.

Sweating,
she carried the crops to the market,
her shoulders bruised from the load,
But received a price
usually paid for mere husks of grain.
She sold the ox to pay taxes,
stripped wood from her roof
for her cooking fire,
Desperate acts
with no thought for next year's hunger

We sold our lives to selfish figures
On imperial seats with their ceremonial Robes, casting fingers on papers to be free from their manifestos; hmm liers!

We are tagged the natives of the street
Pain and misery bitting deep into our spines, sensing the moments flowers are splashed with tears
These season of grief ending not soon

Death emissaries now roams the forsaken lands of our forefathers
Hum-huh: well this year tax collectors demand cash not crops

To recruit Tibetans
to guard the vast northwestern 
Frontier,
Sage officials fill the cabinets
but the people's lives get worse,

Better to end her days as the River Lord's wife!

.....Rasak Daramola