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Fulani Cattle
Contrition twines me like a snake
Each time I come upon the wake
Of your clan,
Undulating along in agony,
Your face a stool for mystery:
What secret hope or knowledge,
Locked in your hump away from man,
Imbues you with courage
So mute and fierce and wan
That, not demurring nor kicking,
You go to the house of slaughter ?
Can it be in the forging
Of your gnarled and crooked horn
You’d experienced passions far stronger
Than storms which brim up the Niger?
Perhaps, the drover’s whip no more
On your balding hind and crest
Arouses shocks of ecstasy:
Or likely the drunken journey
From desert, through grass and forest,
To the hungry towns by the sea
Does call at least for rest—
But will you not first vouchsafe to me,
As true the long knife must prevail,
The patience of even your tail?
— John Pepper Clark
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