Classic Poem

It's the long road to Guinea
Death takes you down
Here are the boughs, the trees, the forest
Listen to the sound of the wind in its long hair of eternal night
It's the long road to Guinea
Where your fathers await you without impatience
Along the way, they talk
They wait
This is the hour when the streams rattle like beads of bone

It's the long road to Guinea
No bright welcome will be made for you
In the dark land of dark men:
Under a smoky sky pierced by the cry of birds
Around the eye of the river the eyelashes of the trees open on decaying light
There, there awaits you beside the water a quiet village,
And the hut of your fathers, and the hard ancestral stone where your head will rest at last.