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 cry 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 listened 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?


For more details, visit: http://bookconvo.com/waecneco-african-prose-drama-and-poems-lonely-days-bayo-adebowale-harvest-of-corruption-by-frank-ogodo-ogbeche-ambush-gbemisola-adeoti/

Lovely. I love poems by Birago Diop

We are too consumed with ourselves, with our problems and thus the vicious cycle continues

@ishilove like Birago Diop, do you also believe that dead ancestors live on and should be celebrated?

Ishilove:
Lovely. I love poems by Birago Diop

We are too consumed with ourselves, with our problems and thus the vicious cycle continues

Ishilove how u? It's me ProphetUdeme, well i heard ure a genius in literature, hmm wanna take Jamb for a second degree course and i'll be writing literature, so i have viewed the syllabus and this poem vanity is among the prescribed poetry works that will be set in the exams, so pls u'll kindly help me outline thefigures of speech, settings and literary devices that u can identify in the poems thanks.
Cc - edygistvilla
monica90

Am having trouble seeing the vanity in this poem. Can someone please help?