HE IS STILL A LAD

He was just a lad

When the western wind came drizzling

Fanning the embers that burnt his hut

He was in the hut

He was still a lad

When the river from the west came flowing

Carrying away the cowries and stones

Up across the oceans and the mountains

When the left hand the lion-skin drum broke

And it produced humming cacophony

That gets the ancestors stunned

He is still a lad

Though the western wind has cooled off

But the rain is still beating him

Still on the western river he floats

In the river his hut he searches

But an image of his he sees

A dying old man in a lad’s body