We are all of this and sometimes worse

We are all of this and sometimes worse
Trapped in the galling mud
Squelching and gasping our way up
Seeking wholesome air
To purify our skins
To wash our faces
To cleanse our breaths
And train our eyes to see far
Searching for the purest thing
Before others can pull us down
To where they settle as always
Down the warmth of the sludge
The warmness of the pig rot in the mud.
Only through the benevolence of death
Loss of breath
Do we become better
Better because we are nothing
Become nothing
The poetry of purity
Poetry of nothingness
Filtered by innocent sands of memory.

Samir Raiti Mtamba is a Zimbabwean poet and prose writer of Malawian extraction (b. Harare, Zimbabwe, 1959) who has been published in many journals in the English-speaking world. He studied at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College and did graduate studies at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a New Leftist by inclination and is grateful to be a recluse and an independent researcher. Read other articles by Samir Raiti.