Kofi Awoonor Poem

The weaver bird built in our house
And laid its eggs on our only tree
We did not want to send it away

We watched the building of the nest
And supervised the egg-laying.
And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner
Preaching salvation to us that own the house
They say it came from the west
Where the storms at the sea has felled the gulls
And the fishers dried their nets by the lantern light
Its sermon is the divination of ourselves
And over new horizons limit at its nest
But we cannot join the prayers and the answers of the communicants.
We look for new homes every day,
For new altars we strive to rebuild
The old shrines defiled from the weaver’s excrement.

-- Kofi Awoonor


http://www.poetryfoundationghana.org/index.php/theme/social-poems/item/50-the-weaver-bird

With Thanks to the Poetry Foundation Website.

The Ewe were shown how to weave 'Kente' cloth. In the Akan wars against the Ewe; Ewe people were captured and some remaining Ewe survivors were enslaved by Akans and made to be weavers. Ke means 'to open' in Ewe and te means 'to press'; the Ewe hold that the word Kete thus describes the weaving motion of the feet.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewe_people