We sing a song
Day by day
We know many songs
In our zero-one-zero patterned stomach.
The heat of this sun
Reddens our shackles
This sun from which this colour emanates
Has given to us many songs.
As our sweat run dry
The soil grows hard
Giving to us more pain
As we sing our many notes.
Our offspring at three
Learn the weight of the chain
And pipe the tunes of agony.
O many a child knows no lullaby!
We till in misery
To pull out sugarcane and Plantain
Singing from plantation to plantation
In this lyrical circle.
We know only the hoe
Yet sing the greatest dirge
True to Emuren—the bereaved are poets
For we sing many dirges.
Our backs' companion—the whip
Falls every minute, forcing out
Tuned sorrow.
We are the odd majority
Come through a vicious triangle
Stocked head to leg into stinking ships
Left to sing our agonizing song.
We've become beasts of burden
Flutes through which elegies are piped
With us poetry started
As a dramatized dirge
The sears of our songs are indelible
The songs of our pangs are insoluble
For our darkest pages
Are musical compositions.
We are songs
The song are the singers
But our songs are fast changing
Yes changing.
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