Vanity by Birago Diop

If we tell, gently, gently
All that we shall one day have to tell,
Who then will hear our voices without laughter, Sad complaining voices of beggars
Who indeed will hear them without laughter?

If we cry roughly of our torments
Ever increasing from the start of things What eyes will watch our large mouths Shaped by the laughter of big children What eyes will watch our large mouth?

What hearts will listen to our clamoring?
What ear to our piࢢful anger Which grows in us like a tumor In the black depth of our plainࢢve throats?

When our Dead comes with their Dead
When they have spoken to us in their clumsy voices; Just as our ears were deaf
To their cries, to their wild appeals Just as our ears were deaf

They have le[ on the earth their cries,
In the air, on the water,
where they have traced their signs for us blind deaf and unworthy Sons
Who see nothing of what they have made
In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs

And since we did not understand the dead
Since we have never listened to their cries If we weep, gently, gently
If we cry roughly to our torments
What heart will listen to our clamoring, What ear to our sobbing hearts?

Birago Diop

Birago Diop was born om  December 11, 1906. He was a Senegalese poet and storryteller. renowned veterinarian , diplomat and leading voice of the Négritude literary movement. He died on November 25, 1989.