Floating across a field of darkness,
My guiding angel’s hand lets go,
I squirm in fear and bathe in blackness, I fall into this blackhole.
With a path facing discovery, and a back turned to home
I fall forward into this spiral, with no where fast to go…

I wound up barefoot at an African shore,
and barefoot as I was, I walked atop not seashells,
but diamonds,
and gold,
and oil intermingled in the sand.
The oil blackened my soul,
My gaze gilded, blinded by gold
and the diamonds cut through the stubborn calluses of history on my feet.
I profusely bled, watched as the blood crept
and danced its way into the arms of the ground,
making blood diamonds.

Vision was not needed here,
the tree cries louder than the eye could see,
of tales of woe and disbelief,
its roots drink blood of king and wretch,
its bark holds tears to drown the seas.
You need not see this tragedy,
Just close your eyes, and ask the songbird to sing,
of a race of slaves that came from kings,
dining on hate and gunpowder it drinks,
and now you know what a dream deferred brings.

Walk east with the nomads and come to coast,
where the masses have cut their own threads of rope,
and worshipped fear and shun out hope,
embracing the thorns and eluding the rose,
and clutching onto pebbles to stay afloat.
The Masai warrior now wakes to find his brethren troubled,
his honor in ruins, his beautiful struggle.
And testing fate, he milked his dry cow to no avail,
under a savannah sea, where man and moon pale.
He bids farewell to the ancient snake god that feeds his earth.
The nile, Whom from his grace we were birthed and nursed,
soon to be a droplet of a curse.

Stray south with animals fleeing war,
only to stroll into more and more,
and hear the valleys, tall and wide,
bellow in warning, with heaven-splitting stride,
of a mindless gore that knows no bore,
where merry dreams are trafficked and peace is whored.
Where man still slaves to superstition,
and so plagues roam free without shackles or chains,
it brings poverty to be the only vision,
and finds freedom held back by reins.

And so, i’ve traveled, far and wide
through this field of darkness and confusing pride,
I melted to the ground, only to find,
that this little sojourn of mine,
was only a venture into the same field of darkness where I reside.

WRITTEN BY NAZIM ELNUR
ARTWORK BY NAZIM ELNUR

Nazim is a U2 student of Economics and Political Science. Raised in Sudan and having lived in Egypt, his work attempts to capture memories and new thinking from the rubbles of issues back home. Living in Montreal has also helped introduce a dimension of transcultural poetry and a globalist perspective to his pieces.

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