The Trial of the Sun

The Sun v. Man

Without a care, you scorched my head,
Bare of hair—and you knew it.
You cast your burning rays without heed
To every cry that came with it.

You drained my crops of life,
Knowing well I depend on them.
Unmercifully.

Their death cuts deep as a sharpened knife;
I watch them wither into dust.
Our riverbeds lie bare,
As though no river ever passed through them.
Our throats ache for a drop that is not there,
While drought settles over the land.

There is no defence for your ways, O Sun!
If there is, then speak.
All you seem to know is how to burn—
Burning earth, burning skin, burning sand.

---

Listen to me, O Man!

Ungrateful creature of the earth,
You accuse the very thing
Without which you would have no life.

Who warms your bones
As you lie comfortably by the beach?
Who gives light to the leaves
Of the crops you claim I destroy?

What of the clothes you hang to dry?
What of the warmth that wakes the soil?
What of every green thing reaching upward,
Turning my light into life?

You curse me when I burn too fiercely,
Yet mourn when I disappear.

You blame me for the drought,
But praise me when the rains have passed.

You call me cruel
Only because today
You stand beneath my heat.

Do I now have your attention?

---

“Order in the courtroom.”

Both sides have been heard.

Man has spoken of suffering.
The Sun has spoken of necessity.

And now comes the verdict:

How easily we judge
From the side on which we stand.

At times, we are the Sun
And judge the Man.

At other times, we are the Man
And judge the Sun.

Each certain of his innocence.
Each blind to what the other gives.
Each seeing clearly
Only what the other has taken.

Case dismissed.

— Faraja Majaliwa