Herbs from Africa

HERBS FROM AFRiCA

For herbs He created for us to heal from their leaves and roots

Of Gala la Tshwene herbal tea,

To green us more than a green leaf of the Mophaphama herb,

And before I had known about the Old Shoshong hills

My curious being had bewildered its common sense just beyond the horizon,

And Africa’s mountains stood taller than distant shadows of history,

For in such mountains were hidden treasures in cages and patches

Of rocks patterned on each other’s shoulder. I wonder how victims

Of civilization had narrowly escaped their culture for a deviant one,

But I am this child that embraces Mother Nature’s green,

The herbs in the wild, the wild herbs of our forefathers’ pride,

From which health was just a mere concern to the elders,

The roots are pounded from Mupindu, Mongovo, Mundeverewashoro

And Mangore trees with Mutjimatji tubers

To heal my swollen being. And boys had their own,

Women and girls theirs, and so were men.

The day would shine behind the mountain, often than not

To the intruder. But the mystic is natural, for I am the soil

From which herbs’d grow. I am the rain that waters nature’s abundant seeds

For the new season. And I’d rise before the full moon to retrace my footprints

In the sands of Africa. For I am Africa’s descendant but a world servant, truth is

I am this human you’d strangely look in the face, because I am the roots,

I am just a knight rider, a paddle between hands of a herbs man,

The herbs, the science of my mother’s breast milk, my father’s treadmill,

For lovers had escaped behind the mountain a longtime ago,

And fossils their bodies had become I suppose, for ages had gone…

But phrases of the African medicine have been ignored

By the scientific kind, for they’re known to be barbaric to the foreign eye,

Yet history fails to explain how ancient people survived without Science…

For religion is a barrier, especially a strange one, a deceptive one,

It overlooks the very human I am, the human in you,

And I find it hard to understand the person I am, for the future confuses

My present person, but I know the past person I was,

I was the great medicine man, the native herbalist, I was

Controlled by the law of nature, the imaginative kind, I was

A strange face, for the world had gone plastic and too fragile

To handle. Machines and industries have and continue to pollute

Skies of the ozone layer. And herbs gardens and fields in the wild

Have become desert portions as desert winds spread their windy wings

Towards mother earth. O herbs from Africa! Heal my swollen being

As I pound the roots and leaves to boil by the fireplace for my body being,

And the herbs I smoke, chew and spices to my vegan dish,

And of course I’d really love to be the mouth piece

Of communities and brethren of peace

For peace to reign us more as I shout out these

Lines in stanzas without clicks between my phaana but trees

And the grass green before winter days. I am a traditionalist, a witch

To the naked eyed morons with capitalist mind, I am just a wish,

And I wish my forefathers had known about me

Before gone. I wish my ancestors’d surround me

Before dawn. For the world has become just a mere senseless being

Where peace has escaped the prisoner’s plea.

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Onalethuso Petruss Buyile Mambo Ntema

The Voice of a Shadow, 2017 ©Onalethuso Ntema, copyright protected.

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Translation of words in setswana and the Hambukushu native tongue:

Gala la Tshwene/Mophaphama - herbal trees for tea. Orator has it that the herbs boost the immune system and general health.

Mupindu - herbal tree from which the roots are pounded (powdered) or boiled raw. The tree is believed to be an erection stimulant for an ultimately gratifying sexual action. 

Mongovo & Mangore - indigenous herbs for cleansing the kidney. 

Mundeverewashoro - The herb is believed to purely cleanse blood and an erection stimulant for an ultimately gratifying sexual action. 

Mutjimatji - The herb is believed to purely cleanse blood and an erection stimulant for an ultimately gratifying sexual action. 

Mophaphama herbal tree (tea) from Old Shoshong hills, Botswana. Photo: Prnc Hyah Photography, 2013.

Victims of Life (and the Human Other)

I am not an exception but a victim of this life

Like butterflies of sacred colors, for time

Is not a living thing. Time is a moment. A mile

Between me, you and reality. And I believe that victims

Often intend or pretend as though nothing has happened

Unaware or known. For life

Demands a little more time to behold, uphold

And embrace. The victim is always a system

Of being strange to the very person I am; but the law

Of nature serenades me to this human I am,

The human other, I am a child of the eighties...

For earliest people have long said it.

The earliest bird. I am just a human, and this

Is a plight of victims of life and the human other. For peace

Is no longer a gesture of oneness but a consortium of greed

And brutal weapons of war and hatred between human beings.

Who is behind all these wars and terrific scenes

Where human blood is shed behind desert winds?

Where logic has escaped human beings to behave

Like fallen heroes of ego over a long period of being enslaved,

Where human faces hide behind religion and slim shades

Of mouthed moths under soils of human skins.

This world is a sacred place of worship,

Where material beings have eroded souls of dozen beings,

For life has become less of a given but a struggle.

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"Victims of Life (and the Human Other)"

- The Voice of a Shadow, 2017

(c) Copyright protected. Onalethuso Petruss Buyile Ntema, Botswana, Afurukan.

Ancestral Calls of the Old Shoshong Hills

ANCESTRAL CALLS OF OLD SHOSHONG HiLLS

I was born a traveler between ages and cages

Of this beloved mother earth. I transverse from North to South

Like a dreamer, journeying between the East to the West

Before my days end.

I had a friend

That I had to visit in December, about three years ago, his

Name is Prince,

And the little person in me desired to see the sacred hills;

The old Shoshong hills of ancient kind,

The day was calm but it was Christmas time

For most of our human kind,

The first of my last days I’d spend walking around the hills,

Climbing between patterns of old rocks underneath my feet

For the day’s revelation of the historical mystics,

I’d often sweat as though a runner on a deceptive marathon

But reality unfolded its person before I could reveal my human other,

The path between the rocks led us to a silent stream…

The voice in me uttered in silent wishes,

Quench my thirst

O silent Shoshong stream

Over olden hills of our forefathers gone,

And I shall hold my breath longer

Than the voice to my own shadow…

I could barely hear my silent heart beat

And the person I am told me to be a little stronger

As a servant of art and cultural heritage,

I had to plead with the gods to welcome me in their soils…

For ancestors have the power to refuse me, rebuke me,

And I was a little nervous when I heard a distant sound

Of what seemed to be a cow-horn trumpet behind

The cobwebs. I knew that being at these sacred ruins

To cleanse my being was a tradition. My heart was at peace

As the sun sunk beyond the hills,

We had gathered wild herbs and boiled the green leaves

To heal

Our body kind. We had cooked beans

To feed our hungry beings.

And the music of the wilderness took me

Further to the forbidden land. The land of unknown realities,

As though societies had angered, abandoned and betrayed their ancestral beings

For just a mere soul seeking pursuit, but what soul need I seek?

For my knees trembled when I heard voices from the hills…

The night had come; the new day was born tomorrow.

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Onalethuso Petruss Buyile Ntema

The Voice of a Shadow, 2017

The Earth is a Human

The Earth is a Human extract

Is the earth a human? What human is this earth? The rhetoric is actually true. Any clue? Would you excuse my ignorant self for being too smart to write this? Just this not so classic theoretical sense? I think the earth is a human. For the voice in me echoes beneath memories of the gone, the present and the distant. What future there is for insecurity, hypocrisy, deception, retaliation, brainwash and manipulation? Of course I embrace the brighter side of life but reality cannot be ignored, not at all. For dreamers do. Farmers do. Thinkers do. Mothers do. Fathers do. Teachers do. Brothers do. Pictures do. Matters do. Pieces do. Cultures do. Beliefs do. Everything else does. The universe is just one such a dream. For dreams do tell us the unknown in corners of the round table as we pursue its diversity, embracing its greatness, debating its relative-ness and so on.

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Onalethuso Petruss Buyile Ntema

The Voice of a Shadow: Life, Reality and Mental Inspiration poetry

Photo credit: Prince Hyah Photography, 2013. Old Shoshong Hills, Shoshong village, Botswana

"I have learnt to appreciate that life is a journey through which destiny is your own, but its treasure knows no measure other than its person, for life is a pattern." 

Onalethuso Ntema Quotes.

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- The Voice of a Shadow, 2017

Word & Sound part 2

Word and Sound part 2

The day was dying for the full moon by the woods

As women gathered their daughters to collect firewood

In the nearby forest before dawn. Word was with them

As their loudest voices echoed from the wilderness, hidden

Treasures revealed before the eyes of the youngest generation,

For the day had come to end its journey. Great songs of great men

And women untold their mystical revelation. The night had fallen

Behind its shadows, and grandmothers sat around as word was spoken

In native tongues to the future, for golden days had gone, the unknown had come,

The unforeseen is yet to unfold its wings before the new day is born.

Abstract realities expressed in the musical undertones like taboos – our norms

Have faded in foreign like forbidden souls of the broken hearted. Shadows have gone

Behind cross corners, the little corners of a circle beneath the human in us,

For word is sound, good sound, spoken word, ancient word, modern word, teach us

The word in you O word of the genesis of human,

Because I am human. And I wish word was human…

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Onalethuso Petruss Buyile Mambo Ntema

The Voice of a Shadow, 2017

Word & Sound part 1

WORD and SOUND part 1

The word. What word need I tell?

What song need I sing when broken hearts surrounded me like an orphan?

Drowning beneath silent rivers and deeper than my toes could handle,

Scary nights tortured my silence as though it were just a mere dream,

And the child in me told me to be grounded like a soldier’s sacrifice,

For strangers know not their stranded days hunted. For word and sound decided

Their fate in my blood stream, my bloodline, my lineage, ancient days united;

In the modern kind, the musical kind, the lyrical and metaphorical tongues.

I could feel my nerves persuaded by the rhythmical madness, my stubborn heart

Crawled beneath the walls of an ancient rhythm, the natural vibe, the musical vibe,

My fingers were dancing like pieces of a songbird,

The sound. The word. For sound is word.

And word is sound. Our sound. Word sound.

The imagery is little known before dawn;

When tomorrow crawls at distant near before gone.

What song need I sing?

What poem there is for me to recite before sunset shadows?

Or breathe like Mother Nature’s word and sound?

What human am I to deceive the other?

Do monkeys betray like humans do? Do they? Not so?

Don’t you wish you could do as monkeys do? Don’t you?

Would you dare listen to the music from the heart beat?

The sounds it makes, the patterns, the word, the heart beat…

O word of my mother’s mouth piece;

The servant of word in sound but parables and phrases, 

Your word is flowery, sparkles and sprouts through but all seasons;

In ancient voices of the gone. The gone.

Our ancestral songs chanted behind the sun down,

The storyteller sound, the word.

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Onalethuso Petruss Buyile Mambo Ntema

The Voice of a Shadow, 2017