Written piece
THE LIVING KNOT
Tracy Chipongoma
Zambia
About this piece
Original
The poem highlights the initial struggles of the commonwealth. How people who had no reason to stay together decided to be one voice.Their relationship isn't all rosy but their still manage to work together and stand equals.this dynamic is what makes me liken it to the red string
English translation
The poem highlights the initial struggles of the commonwealth. How people who had no reason to stay together decided to be one voice.Their relationship isn't all rosy but their still manage to work together and stand equals.this dynamic is what makes me liken it to the red string
The Living Knot
To some, a single thread has no use.
It can be pondered on, or tossed away; its absence is never felt.
To us, it’s an intricate vine–
One that will always tangle, bend, lose its shape, but never breaks.
It coils around itself, around branches, wood, and stone, but never snaps.
It pulls everything it touches together, weaving a delicate pattern.
You can liken us to the red string theory,
But this string wasn't handed to us by fate.
We spun it ourselves from the wreckage of what we used to be.
We first started as a club governed by one man,
Where freedom was not a choice and loyalty was bought in blood and gold.
But then, something broke.
A crawling sensation-a slow awakening–that whispered we were equals.
We looked at the wreckage and found something too valuable to be thrown away.
We were different colors, different shores,
But we shared the same rhythm in our courts,
The same skeleton in our governments,
And a language we had learned to make our own.
At first, we stayed for the gains and not the relationship.
We held the thread because it was a bridge for trade,
A common tongue to speak across the fence,
A way to keep from falling behind.
But the longer we held it, the more the fiber changed.
The gain became the bond.
Then, the strain came.
We began to pull in all directions until the thread became taut.
Our individual voices were loud, but to the world, still quiet.
We held the same tune, but we hummed different melodies.
For the melody was not born in a quiet room;
It rose from the soil of India, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Guyana—
Voices with the dust of a new freedom on their breath.
We stood and drowned out the old, singular chant.
We wept, we shouted, we shook the very foundations of the club,
Until the master had to look the servant in the eye and call him brother.
We found our harmony not by staying silent,
But by singing our own songs until the walls learned the tune.
We are no longer a chain of the past, but a choice for the morning—
And as long as we hold our end, the pattern holds us all.
English translation
The Living Knot
To some, a single thread has no use.
It can be pondered on, or tossed away; its absence is never felt.
To us, it’s an intricate vine—
One that will always tangle, bend, lose its shape, but never breaks.
It coils around itself, around branches, wood, and stone, but never snaps.
It pulls everything it touches together, weaving a delicate pattern.
You can liken us to the red string theory,
But this string wasn't handed to us by fate.
We spun it ourselves from the wreckage of what we used to be.
We first started as a club governed by one man,
Where freedom was not a choice and loyalty was bought in blood and gold.
But then, something broke.
A crawling sensation—a slow awakening—that whispered we were equals.
We looked at the wreckage and found something too valuable to be thrown away.
We were different colors, different shores,
But we shared the same rhythm in our courts,
The same skeleton in our governments,
And a language we had learned to make our own.
At first, we stayed for the gains and not the relationship.
We held the thread because it was a bridge for trade,
A common tongue to speak across the fence,
A way to keep from falling behind.
But the longer we held it, the more the fiber changed.
The gain became the bond.
Then, the strain came.
We began to pull in all directions until the thread became taut.
Our individual voices were loud, but to the world, still quiet.
We held the same tune, but we hummed different melodies.
For the melody was not born in a quiet room;
It rose from the soil of India, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Guyana—
Voices with the dust of a new freedom on their breath.
We stood and drowned out the old, singular chant.
We wept, we shouted, we shook the very foundations of the club,
Until the master had to look the servant in the eye and call him brother.
We found our harmony not by staying silent,
But by singing our own songs until the walls learned the tune.
We are no longer a chain of the past, but a choice for the morning—
And as long as we hold our end, the pattern holds us all.