River of Hope and Ubuntu, Two Poems Composed by Charles Lipanda Mahigwe

1. River of Hope 

 

Going to school is something that no one talks about.

Dropping out has become the right choice between heaven and hell.

Have you ever been asked to shout

In a dark room filled with stories to tell?

 

I wonder what’s going to happen to us

When girls don’t fear for spending the whole day in a boy’s room?

What about us, boys who give them pregnancy

Yet, we can’t take care of ourselves?

How can a child raise another child?

Do you see?

 

If geographers were right to say that the earth is round,

Spinning around till it reaches you on the ground.

Life doesn’t befall in anyone’s hands with sound.

Stand and start working to mound

For you can break its walls and mend to bound.

 

Jesus dives in the river of hope

Purifying you to cope

With all aspects of life.

You won’t starve to death or be killed by knife

Get away from what will lead you in abyss.

Stay and lay your mind with peace,

Walk in footprints of God

Who doesn’t leave his loved ones sad.

 

I preach to drive demons’ outrage,

I teach to empower people of all ages,

I write to expose the evils the world enacts,

I speak to raise what’s been shuffled.

 

 

2. Ubuntu 

 

Fraternidade,

 

Another day has come,

A day full of hope

That ignites lonely world.

The sky is blue, clear and light

 

Love is the cure that heals

The wounds of heart

Rotting to perish.

It’s the transformer of pains

To feelings of comfort

That strengthens the displaced.

 

Care should be given

Without consideration for the familiar

Or strange,

For it’s the solute diluting depression.

It brings hope

Where there is no happiness.

 

There is a song of charity

Creating rhythms of symphony.

Sounds like the twilight of the stars,

We, orphans, long to hear

We, refugees, long sing

We, hopeless, long to embrace

We, widows, long to listen

 

The beauty of Africa lies in Ubuntu.

I can see the rainbows as the sun sets,

Sunrays splitting through the thatched huts,

Shadows of hatred sliding down

As hasty as mountainous muds

For fraternity floods and overflows African lands.

 

Children chilling and chasing around

For education is given to the helpless

Without discrimination or segregation,

But with motivation, compassion and commitment.

Their dedication to the needy

Saves swam of lives.

 

I can’t fly without you

I can’t breathe in your absence

For you’ve have taught me how to love,

How to care,

How to play.

I wonder how you paddle me in this cradle

Your tenderness tricking down my eyes,

Puddling on my face like happy tears.

 

You give us courage,

You enlighten philosophy of humanity.

Psychosocial refreshes our minds

I’ll die holding onto your hand.

God and angels will celebrate with you

If my mouth will open,

I’ll tell the heaven to be good with you

From cradles to the graves

For you also deserve endless life.

 

I am because we are,

This makes us together.

Uniting our hands for one

Separating will make us apart.

 

I am because we are.

Library without books

Is a hole without moles.

Ubuntu unites all in one forever.

Let’s be grateful for their presence.

 

I’ve been writing beyond my age

For my life is the whole stage

Whose actors are pain and joy,

But the audience is you.

 

 

Bio of the Poet: Charles Lipanda Mahigwe is a writer, poet, author and performer in Slam Poetry from Our talents, our advocacy festival, Tumaini Festival and Zomba City Festival. He was born on 2nd July 2005 in DRCongo. The Congolese poet is also optimistic. He proved this mostly in his poetry where he writes about hope, dream and future. He is one of the founders and the president of African Youth Artistic Poetry – AYAP where children and youth are trained for poetry and one of the organizers of our talents, our advocacy festival.