Ngwatilo

to plant blue gum trees because they would sell to the power
company, because it would help the environment, to plant,
even if we replaced the ones God planted – destroy them -
to make farms for profitable fashionable green things, like maize
and coffee, neglecting and forgetting the plants we grew before,
the trees that just breathed while gnarled and twisted,
which kept us and our rivers. We believe that God doesn’t mind
anything we do, as long as we pray and fast by design
or hunger; as long as we plant trees and work the land, careless
to study it, as if we live on the edge of Eden.