Can you read the riddle of sense
In this portrait of me begun?
I am one on whom providence
Has worked its magic turn.
Behind me is a quivering story
Like a storm, or a stain.
As an African I have worn history
Round my neck like a chain.
I have sipped the language of death
I have shaped my canvas of earth.
I’ve crossed a sea of fires
And seen what not even empires
Nor great might can obscure.
Man is the sickness, God the cure.