<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[The Tashinga Initiative&#039;s Blog]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://thetashingainitiative.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[The Tashinga Initiative Foundation 501(c)3]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://thetashingainitiative.wordpress.com/author/thetashingainitiative/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Patrol Prose by Ranger Emmanuel Roy Mafuka _ Matusadona National&nbsp;Park]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>GOODBYE URBAN LIFE</p>
<p>The lights still shine<br />
Twinkling in the African darkness<br />
Spreading their wings<br />
Like stars they are<br />
Good morning urbanization</p>
<p>Dark the clouds are<br />
With little like no fresh air<br />
Only heavy scent penetrates our little world<br />
Industrial gases spiraling up into blue skies<br />
Good afternoon urban life</p>
<p>Cry my beloved acquatic life<br />
For your home is invaded<br />
By sewerage and waste<br />
All the way from Town<br />
Cry Tilapia Breams!</p>
<p>Cry my beloved house sparrow<br />
Cry my beloved mousebird<br />
For the bins are filled empty<br />
The tenant’s food is cooked to the stomach<br />
Nothing left to skirmish on</p>
<p>Rolling dust roads go<br />
From one street to one avenue<br />
With noise and disturbance<br />
That breeds no peace in nature<br />
The soul of a healthy community<br />
Gone in pillage<br />
Born out of a desire home<br />
Exhausted the environment remains</p>
<p>At sunset night clubs illuminate<br />
Pounding like hammer mills<br />
Filled with plastic music<br />
Little prostitutes fly in their high heels like paradise flycatchers<br />
With diseases and viruses to spread<br />
All roofs polluted and contaminated<br />
With cigarette smoke and death<br />
Goodbye ghetto life<br />
Goodbye rising costs for declining resources</p>
<p>Happily I stroll<br />
Along vegetation created before man<br />
To my promised land<br />
Our land of fund and adventure<br />
Goodbye town life</p>
<p>To a quiet Matusadona I go<br />
To stay with the pride of lions<br />
A privileged garden of screaming hyaenas<br />
That giggle and laugh at their restaurants<br />
A land that keeps thy heart thumping<br />
Leopard cat walking<br />
Like beauty queens<br />
Deodorizing the Gwembe Valley<br />
With pungent “leo” scent<br />
Never be affordable<br />
Even on the Indian man’s retail shop</p>
<p>Hippo grunt in the pans<br />
Sacred ibis hunting along the lakeshore<br />
Baboon chant<br />
Celebrating a new Tashinga</p>
<p>For each day unfolds with new initiatives<br />
Initiatives of a well-managed habitat<br />
Where our brothers and sisters play<br />
Hide and seek with impalas<br />
Goodbye expensive life</p>
<p>To the graveyard of Tonga<br />
I go<br />
Now turned into beautiful grazing grounds<br />
Like small football pitch ground they seem<br />
Where Zebras take opportunities<br />
To play like donkeys in rugby jerseys<br />
Only to beautify Africa’s soul<br />
The little heart of the unknown land</p>
<p>Goodbye Ghetto life<br />
A life that left me<br />
With no memories of the buffaloes<br />
That graze along Shenga river<br />
Ground hornbills tip toeing<br />
In less grace than ballet dancers<br />
Wild dogs criss cross in hunt<br />
The unimaginable Starvation Island<br />
And island blessed with their meals<br />
Safe from angry villagers<br />
A life of sight catching events<br />
Yellow billed oxpeckers feeding<br />
On ticks stuck on buffalo rhino and hippos<br />
Goodbye goodbye gold panners</p>
<p>For you I shall not cry<br />
But wonder for my brothers and sisters<br />
As I hide under Colophospermum Mopane<br />
Gazing to a rising African sun<br />
Admiring the Kariba sunset<br />
That took my soul away yesterday<br />
A thief of my heart<br />
Kariba sunset<br />
My darling<br />
Goodbye electricity and water bills</p>
<p>A world of all races<br />
Where lions roar lackadaisically<br />
Baboons saluting a new day with a bark<br />
Easterly fresh air blow<br />
Catching up our souls<br />
With excitement and fund<br />
Goodbye for good deforestation</p>
<p>In crescendo I shall sing<br />
A song with the lilac breasted rollers call<br />
A song known to fish eagles<br />
Serenades of great notes to the spirits<br />
A song to keep crocodiles heads high<br />
A voice that call Nyaminyami River God<br />
To rise to protect<br />
Adorable waters of Lake Kariba<br />
And calm down the Binga Wave<br />
As tourist pour like rain thunder<br />
To rejoice in our land<br />
The Land of the Tonga people<br />
The Gova’s prosperity<br />
Whose land was swallowed<br />
By the whistling and rising Zambezi waters<br />
That moulded my love<br />
Goodbye noisy cars</p>
<p>Streams of rivers flow<br />
From Matuzviadonha in songs<br />
That grow louder into meandering rivers<br />
Louder than Tonga drums I hear<br />
Drums clear and communicating<br />
To the grandchildren of the Gova<br />
A birth of caring offspring<br />
Born in tsetse territories<br />
But bravely I raise my black palm<br />
To wave goodbye<br />
Goodbye to town life<br />
Goodbye for good</p>
]]></html></oembed>