Written piece
DUCKLINGS OF THE CONCRETE
JEAN WATHUGU
Kenya
About this piece
Ducklings of the concrete is a poem that speaks to the African urban youth experience. While it is impossible to delineate every single experience - central themes can be found: the tug-of-war between the cosmopolitan and the ancestral and the vitality of the city hustle.
DUCKLINGS OF THE CONCRETE
We are the ducklings of the concrete,
The city is our village,
Raised by its Brownian motion,
Randomly and everlasting in a reciprocity,
Shove and care in absolute balance,
Survive or perish in the fission,
Infinite stone-throws away from home-sweet-genesis,
Our tongues have squandered heritage wealth,
11.27PM: But ANATSBHCB yk?
(our African names abbreviate the space between history and contemporary belonging, you know?)
Our blood lets in vigour,
Our aspirations make up the cumulus clouds,
Our strength thunders from layers beneath,
Can you hear the ancestors bellowing?
Elastic hands on a bongo drums,
Speaking to us in syllables of serendipity!
We must wake tomorrow to live again.
We must wake tomorrow to die again.
The fibres of our lineage are threaded forward this way.