Foday Suso, Kora Griot
If you want to go straight to Hell
You follow the melodies of the Hamelin’s flutist;
If you want to go to Heaven smiling
You’d better listen to the kora griot
With twenty one strings, two thumbs
Hard worked from childhood
His heart, a flexible cow hide,
Melodies tempered as Timbuktu’s steel
Foday will take you back
Through stories dated
Hundreds of years to a land
Where the Mandingoes made love
In the forest under the eyes
Of curious guardian spirits
A kora is not for the hands
Of a tyrant who makes wailing music
Out of the throats of freedom fighters;
A kora is for the hands of a young poet
Who sings to the beauty of the
Great Gambia River
While fishermen sell the daily catch
to sinuous women
Oh, Foday! Our paths may never cross again;
But the beauty of your kora,
The subtleness of your thumbs,
Your never-stopping smile,
Your aura and your celestial music
That calls from Africa beyond the seas,
All those treasured items have been
Forever imprinted on my forehead
They roam in a welcome way
Through the jungles of my soul