An African thunderstorm

David Rubadiri

Rubadiri was born in Malawi on July 19, 1930. He attended King's College, Budo in Uganda from 1941-1950 then Makerere University in Kampala from 1952-1956, where he graduated from with a bachelor's degree in English literature and History. He later studied Literature at King’s College, Cambridge. He went on to receive a Diploma in Education from the University of Bristol.
He returned home to deep involvement in the education and politics of his country. In 1959, he was detained during the state of emergency in Nyasaland. He was for some time his country's ambasador to the united states of America. He is keenly interested in the arts and the promotion of literature and is one of the early creators of modern African literature from East Africa. Apart from his poems which have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals, he has also written a novel, No Bride Price. 

Here is one of his poems.


An African thunderstorm    
                                                                   

        An African thunderstorm        

From the west
Clouds come hurrying with the wind
Turning sharply
Here and there
Like a plague of locusts
Whirling,
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing.

Pregnant clouds
Ride stately on its back,
Gathering to perch on hills
Like dark sinister wings;
The wind whistles by
And trees bend to let it pass.

In the village
Screams of delighted children,
Toss and turn
In the din of whirling wind,
Women,
Babies clinging on their backs
Dart about
In and out
Madly;
The wind whistles by
Whilst trees bend to let us pass.

Clothes wave like tattered flags
Flying off
To expose dangling breasts
As jagged blinding flashes
Rumble, tremble and crack
Amidst the smell of fired smoke
And the pelting march of the storm.


This poem vividly describes the disorder and havoc caused by an African thunderstorm.
Were you able to visualize in your mind's eyes how the villagers dash about hastily to safety? Did u picture the children and their dispositions?

Try it.