Axum / Timbuctu

Lyrics

Brathwaite's reading of these poems can be heard on SoundCloud or by opening this annotation AxumWith the help of the Caliph of Heaven, who in heaven and earth conquers all; I, El Hassan, son of Amida, King of Axum, of Halen, Hemer, Rayden and Salhen; made war on the Noba; fought at Takazi, by the ford of Kemalke; burnt town, destroyed villages, pillaging houses and temples whether of stone or of straw did not matter; splattered blood in the corn; burnt their altars of horn, bronze and coppеr; threw their dark wooden gods in thе river and the next day moved on till we reached the Red River ... TimbuctuWhose gold you carry, camel, in this cold cold world? Whose pearls of great price? Whose cinnamon, whose spice? Your world of walls, o city of my birth, rises so certain so secure; the plains of dust surrounding us so kept away, so distant. Whose gold you carry, camel, on your hill-top back? To what far land you now transport our wealth? And what wealth here, what riches, when the gold returns to dust, the walls we raised return again to dust; and what sharp winds, teeth'd with the desert's sand, rise in the sun's dry brilliance where our mosques mock ignorance, mock pride, burn in the crackled blaze of time, return again to whispers, dust.