And I was born again to live again,
But there I was in some slave land.
Was it Angola, in the Congo, or Kinshasha?
Was it Opobo, in Port Novo, or Monrovia?
Was it Dahomey, Yamasoukro or Sao Tome?
Was it Maputo, in Moroni, or Mogadishu?
Was it Khartoum, in Djibouti, or Kampala?
I may not be sure of which but I was there.
They led us off and away to strange lands,
And never to motherland again return.

And I was born again to live again,
But there I was in the 'land of blacks'
I had thought Chaka's time was past,
And agonies of slavery gone with it,
But I was wrong for the warlords came.
My sister was raped by the Northerners,
My brother was killed before my eyes,
My mother was shot for crying out,
My father was hung for hiding me,
And never again did I see my folks.

And I was born again, but live in sorrow,
They spared my life but made it empty,
I was worth a few cash to their coffers.
And yes their tenets they forced on me,
Compelling upon me to hate and kill,
And this day I have no friends, many foes.
I have no life for there is none to live,
I see no future for there's only gloom.
I have cried but none would hear,
And never again is there joy in life.

And I was born again to live again,
But here I am in this time and age,
Fighting the evil that plagued the past.
Nkrumah, Zik, and Zulu fought aliens,
But now in our land, we fight our kind,
I have heard of the OAUs and the UNOs,
But they stand silent against our woes.
And a child like me may want to ask,
Why I was born in the land of the blacks,
But God could not have made a mistake.

(Poems of Freedom)
© 2002

Oliver Mbamara, Esq., is an Administrative Law Judge with the State of New York.