Thank you, Editor, for the poets’ column. We can't keep quiet. The party's fine, except for the smoke. What's happened to us? We're still just white as snow! Cast your eyes on Leviticus, chapter 18, verses one to five. Keep your country's laws and customs: those are your life-giving God. Mercy, Africa! African moss, sipping in ripples of gloom. The riches of your country were dug to the sound of a whistle. Our tails wag when we catch sight of you. You stubbed your toe and felt the pain, a slip of the tongue and they stomped on you. Mercy! your kingship's now like an ostrich, with its head buried in the dust. Oh! Two bad Xhosa things slapped against each other when you swayed from side to side. Mercy, Africa! Garden of Africa, your crop was consumed and scattered by birds. Mercy, Africa! African she-dove, spiders who once clung to you will spin your home to a cliff and leave it for European orphans; yet you took not one thing from the whites. Africa, wail in a mountain cave: foreign customs have upended this land of Phalo, African mimosa, twisting in falling, branches yet reaching out to foreign nations. Spotted leopard because of those nations, who distrust us, and warn one another. Where are the priests, who came to teach us, saying: “I'm just a stranger on earth: I'm on my way to Heaven. I long passionately for the heavenly Jerusalem.” But what they really meant was that they were just strangers overseas: they were on their way to Africa: they longed passionately for the wealth of that country. And you, Africa, sang those songs, you cursed yourself before Jehovah. Today you need clothes: you're chased off while ploughing. In the end you're just a stranger on earth. You must know this: when will you get to Heaven? Look, young men! I'll be blunt: foreign laws have upended this land of Phalo. Mercy, Africa, strife-torn land! Please low like an old cow as well as a calf—that's why we cry out saying “Let it come back”—and induce birth pangs in our people. We began to dress up before the fight ended.