Fading laughter

It is not all laughter, all the time.
Who can laugh when the roof leaks
And the walls give way to floods?
Laughter is the seasoning of salt, and
Salt is not food, but a seasoning for food.
They have their sorrows, these men of the land
Poverty stalks them by the hour
And the Kente is a flesh in their lives
Handed down through the rungs of the years
From uncle to nephew through mother's stream
Times disintegrating fingers, have by stealth,
Loosened the threads
Where the weaver of bonwire had joined the strips
The dyes in the colors, red, blue , gold and green
Sapped by the devilry of age,
Have paled to where they can fade no more
But, to them, there is no matter to grief:
Life has other gifts.

-Kwesi Brew