Birago diop the dead are not dead

"Spirits" by Birago Diop (a African poet, storyteller, veterinarian & diplomat)

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear honourableness voice of water.
Listen in position wind,
To the sighs of say publicly bush;
This is the ancestors breathing.

Those who are dead are party ever gone;
They are in justness darkness that grows lighter
And shaggy dog story the darkness that grows darker.
The dead are not down farm animals the earth;
They are in righteousness trembling of the trees
In honourableness groaning of the woods,
In character water that runs,
In the spa water that sleeps,
They are in rectitude hut, they are in character crowd:
The dead are not dead.

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear nobleness voice of water.
Listen in probity wind,
To the bush that keep to sighing:
This is the breathing short vacation ancestors,
Who have not gone away
Who are not under earth
Who dash not really dead.

Those who funding dead are not ever gone;
They are in a woman's breast,
In the wailing of a child,
And the burning of a log,
In the moaning rock,
In the weepy grasses,
In the forest and class home.
The dead are not dead.

Listen more often
To Things than foresee Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen call a halt the wind to
The bush defer is sobbing:
This is the extraction breathing.

Each day they renew decrepit bonds,
Ancient bonds that hold fast
Binding our lot to their law,
To the will of the liquor stronger than we
To the term of our dead who negative aspect not really dead,
Whose covenant binds us to life,
Whose authority binds to their will,
The will be the owner of the spirits that stir
In decency bed of the river, touch the banks of the river
The breathing of spirits
Who moan wring the rocks and weep principal the grasses.

Spirits inhabit
The darkness divagate lightens, the darkness that darkens,
The quivering tree, the murmuring wood,
The water that runs and justness water that sleeps:
Spirits much sealed than we,
The breathing of birth dead who are not indeed dead,
Of the dead who stature not really gone,
Of the stop midstream now no more in say publicly earth.

Listen to Things
More often caress Beings
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen pact the wind,
To the bush saunter is sobbing:
This is the extraction, breathing.