The hubbub she is part of,

And the constant moves, albeit nature bound,

She must accomplish

For her to live longer and flourish

Proved too much for her to cope with.

She was heavy,

Looking tired, looking wary,

Months on end,

This ever growing seed

Inside her she had to carry.

Nonetheless, she had to keep trudging

To match the pace

Set by the rest, until

No more she could.

Though the jaws were invariably clenched,

The lips hermetically sealed,

Clear white marks along the cleavages

There began to form bubbles of foams.

Then she hesitated, flailed her head,

Judder they did the rumps

And she put back her front limb

Exactly at the same spot

Where it had been lifted from,

But for the fetlocks they began turning red hot.

And she jibbed - refusing to budge come what may!

Alas! Contraction had earnestly began.

And if one is to go by

The wry countenance

And glazed eyes given to gawp,

At but blank surface.

But it was not inopportune,

Night had befallen by chance

And the predators’ cunning manoeuvres

Had come to a halt -

As did the herds’ stampeding horror.

This land is paradise but at the same time it can be hell

Where predators and prey reside at close quarters

Almost touching head to tail.

In her moments of need,

One or two, possibly blood related,

Could be a sister and an offspring

But most visible the impregnator

Seemed to notice the convulsive pressure

She had been under,

And the pain she had to suffer.

It wasn’t like one of his craze

Fighting a duellist when aroused

Or raising the dust and causing melee

And drumming out his macho bovine roar

Like the one heard while

A bovine is chasing a receptive female.

This time round it had to be but empathy

For he let out a falsetto bellow

Reminding his fellows

One of their comrades was unable to follow.

Bellowing, trudging and dragging their feet,

As if wanting the others to heed their request

In the manner and languages they knew best.

Just before they reached the waterhole

Near the foot of the gentle massif hills

To their relief, the trio brought the enter herd

To a standstill.

Feeling stupor from excruciating pains

From the skull roof

All the way to the bases of the hooves,

All night long,

She spent in a whirling world of her own.

Alack! At dawn,

When only a portion of the sun

Emerged from behind the mountains,

She caved in and hit the floor.

Then at last, slowly but steadily

With every pain and groan

She performed a miracle -

A living being was born.

As always that there is an end to everything

The pain gave way to good feelings.

However shortly after,

By a twist of irony,

The story of the quarry

Took further needless journey.

All the trauma as if it was not enough,

Blood and the afterbirth

Sent the unmistakable scent

For those with the qualifying smelling sense

And no sooner than later

The scene turned as a drama centre.

They descended from the air,

And all ground corners.

The infighting and ensuing general war

That broke out between jackals, wild dogs and vultures,

As to who would devour the leftover,

Left nothing to be desired,

For being a scavenger or a carnivore -

Disgusting blood soused snouts scuttling all over!!

But that was one thing,

And the other:

Even though the mother did try her best,

Despite the bouncing delirious birth effects,

The newly born,

Before it stretched its fledgling feet,

Before breaking its long fast,

And latched onto the mother’s breast.

Better yet, before it could realise who was on her side to be trusted,

And who wasn’t

The calf began to get bitten right and left.

There is no doubt; few bystanders chipped in their bits

To stave off the intruders

And save the life that had just began

But they couldn’t.

The calf was gone, torn apart in bits.

Oh! Gnu weep as you might,

Denied a moment of sigh,

A day of puerperal joy,

Your teats aching with milk,

But no one of your own to feed, canoodle and lick.

Yours is an inane tragedy for a start,

Typical of the land,

You happened to be part.

Call me a sardonic if you like,

But I have to say your misery

Is nonchalantly endorsed by the rest

As an inevitable rule of the survival of the fittest.

Only to be recorded on the lenses of cameras for the pleasure of tourists.

Africa weep no tear but blood

The yellow liquid - gold is gone what else do you have to trade

But the animals.

Copy Right Haileselassie Girmay

27/1/99