In Brief

A painting by the chimpanzee artist Congo (1954–64)

Hoax

The sun sinks. It's all a hoax they say.

See the snow on the sidewalk?

Not there to stay. Gone tomorrow, here today!

This is not the world I was born into.

That's long departed. My parents, too,

Who never dreamt of this.

Draw a line under my writing.

What’s the earthly use of fighting?

In Plumstead waiting for a ride

To take us to the airport,

We met a man from the DRC

What was he doing there

So far, like me, from home?

He wanted us to solve some problem

But couldn't say what it was.

I gave him a few rand. Not a lot.

He watched ungrateful as we sped away.

They’ve been fighting there practically all my life.

No, not in the early years before Lumumba was murdered.

Back in the sixties my friend George Clay, a journalist reporting for NBC,

Was killed there by friendly fire,

Shot by a UN jawan.

And it still goes on—neither democratic, republican, nor even Congolese.

In life there’s no completion to human fate.

Standing at that door, I wait.

Jawan = soldier (Hindi, from Urdu javān young man)

Monday, December 8, 2025