Zimbwabwe:Christopher H. D. Magadza

Christopher H. D. Magadza

 Christopher H. D. Magadza (1939) B. Sc., M. Phil. (London), Ph. D. (Auckland, New Zealand) is Founding Fellow of African Academy of Sciences and Founding Fellow of the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences. he is a man whose life has served as a barometer of Zimbabwe’s more recent history, experienced as it has been through the filter of a fine academic intelligence.

Magadza was born in a village in Chief Kaswas’s area, now called Burma Valley, in Manicaland, Zimbabwe. He was educated at St Augustine’s Mission, Penhalonga, near Mutare, and Fletcher High School in Gweru, and read for a B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Magadza completed his Ph.D. in New Zealand.

Magadza is not a merem poet alone; he is  a limnologist, though now retired; he was a member of the International Lake Environment Committee and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has worked on New Zealand, Zambian, and Zimbabwean inland waters. For his post-retirement activities, Magadza is involved with the International Lake Environment Committee in attempts to restore Lake Chivero; he also established the Middle Zambezi Biosphere Reserve in the Global family of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves after twenty-three years of work.

In 2007, Magadza retired from the University of Zimbabwe but still teaches; in the same year he was made co-recipient of the Noble Peace Prize given to the International Lake Environment Committee and former President Al Gore for work on Climate change assessment.
Magadza is married to Maggie and they have two daughters, Shelagh and Tendai, as well as two grandsons, Sipiwe and Langa.

Some of his poems

FATHER

Father,
I have seen your eyes
Close in death
Yet the smile seemed
To linger on your face.

I have held your stiff hand,
Felt the deep silence
And heard your unspoken farewell;

I have seen the grave
Embrace you
As a mother
Takes her child
To her bosom.

Yet I beg you,
Ndapota, please
Stay with me awhile.

AFRICAN GIRL

African girl
Drenched in African heat
Gyrating
Not in disco ecstasy
But burdened
By the weight of life;
Firewood
For the family crucible

African woman
In far-off times
On those sun-beaten savannahs
Haunted by beast and serpent
You fashioned intelligence
And called your newborn
Homo sapiens
A living star
Whose light would outshine
All celestial stars.

Now he fashions star wars
And says you
Are underdeveloped.
Your ancient bones
Exposed by the eroding
African hunger
Lie sacrileged
Among museum trivialities,
And jesting
They dub you
Lucy the fossil.

Yet you still bear
The fire of life;
Barefoot
Like a lioness hunting
For her cubs
Kneaded by the African sun,
Buffeted by tropical storm
You roam the wasteland
Searching
For the ingredients of life;
Water and fire.

African woman
Mother of mankind
And its destiny yet.
. . .
African girl
You are a good . . .
Black . . .
     Woman.

ANATOMY OF AFRICAN PATHOS

The African
Suffers poverty
Differently
From humans

The African
Suffers pain
Differently
From Humans.


The African
Sorrows, bereaves
Differently
From humans

The African
Suffers torture
Differently
From humans
Because the African pain
Is painless pain.

The African
Starves differently
From humans
Because it is African
To starve.

The African female
Endures rape
Quite differently
From women

The African child
Is a child soldier
A slave child
Or  a mere street child.

The African migrant
Is an illegal migrant:
No citizen
But a refugee
In his home.

The African dies
Differently
From humans.

The African’s
Birth mark
Is a black scar

The African
Is African:
Not human.

That is why
African leaders,
A little more African
Than Africans,
Insist on
African solutions
To the African
Pathos.

 CLEAN UP

I can see clearly now
The shack is gone
I can see the stars
Quivering as if
Afraid of the dark

I can see
The baleful moon
With clouds blowing
Across its distraught face,
Lonely as if
Bereaved

I can smell the freshness
Of the garbage
The persistent breeze,
Like the tax man,
Insistent on its demands
On my body warmth.

Now I can see the dawn
Painting the sky
Blood red
The early warning
Of the visiting hunger

I can feel the sun
Teasing me
With its morning warmth
That soon turns
To a scorching hate.

Now the compound
Is silent and mute,
I can hear distant calls
From lost children: a generation
With no past nor future:
A mere memory lapse.

Maggie

Oh what delight
To share the morning music
Of Nature alive with you.

To bathe in the splendour
Of a tropical morning sun;
To wander down the winding path
Bejewelled with the raindrops sunset glitter
And share the wild fragrance
Of the forest’s hidden charms;

To hold hands
And feel the belonging
To share the warmth of the body
And sleep the slumber
Of wearied saints.

Yet lonely,
One lonely day
One of us
Will see the other
Smile no more;
Embrace and kiss no more;
And speak only
In echoing silence;
Silence echoing
Down the catacombs
Of love’s indelible memories.

Oh Father
How I have heard
That silent
Repeating silence.

All poems are under Copyright

Thanks Poetry International