Poem: Agostinho Neto by Chinua Achebe

Neto, were you no more

Than the middle one favored by fortune In children's riddle; Kwame Striding ahead to accost Demons; behind you a laggard third As yet unnamed, of twisted fingers?

No! Your secure strides

Were hard earned. Your feet Learned their fierce balance In violent slopes of humiliation; Your delicate hands, patiently Groomed for finest incisions, Were

commandeered brusquely to kill, Your melodious voice to battle cry.

Perhaps your family and friends knew a merry flash cracking the gloom We see in

pictures but I prefer And will keep the darker legend.

For I have seen how

Half a millennium of alien rape And murder can stamp a smile On the vacant face of the

fool. The sinister grin of Africa's idiot-kings Who oversee in obscene palaces of gold The

butchery of their own people.

Neto, I sing your passing. 1. Timid requisitioner of your vast Armory's most congenial

supply. What shall I sing? A dirge answering The gloom? No, I will sing tearful songs of joy; I will celebrate The Man who rode a trinity of awesome fates to the cause of our trampled race!

Thou Healer, Soldier, and Poet!