Birago Diop’s Vanity Essay

Birago Diop: He was born in 1906 at Dakar, Senegal. He was educated in Senegal and in France where in qualifed in veterinary surgeon. VANITY is one of his many poems he used in expressing the presence of the ancestor. THE POEM VANITY If we tell, gently, gently All that we shall one day have to tell, Who then will hear our voices without laughter, Sad complaining voices of beggars Who indeed will hear them without laughter? If we roughly of our torments Ever increasing from the start of things What eyes will watch our large mouths Shaped by the laughter of big children What eyes will watch our large mouth? What hearts will listen to our clamoring? What ear to our pitiful anger Which grows in us like a tumor In the black depth of our plaintive throats? When our Dead comes with their Dead When they have spoken to us in their clumsy voices; Just as our ears were deaf To their cries, to their wild appeals Just as our ears were deaf They have left on the earth their cries, In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs For us blind deaf and unworthy Sons Who see nothing of what they have made In the air, on the water, where they have traced their signs And since we did not understand the dead Since we have never listen to their cries If we weep, gently, gently If we cry roughly to our torments What heart will listen to our clamoring, What ear to our sobbing hearts?