African Drums
By Linda A. Copp

African drums, African drums,
Something 'bout your culture hums.
Must be your people,
must be your time,
Must be the rhythm
of your feet beating rhyme.
Yet, would you believe the truth
of this fact,
That some wish to send
your ancestors back.

They think that somehow
this world's better bred,
If ebony and ivory is divided instead.
Just a thought there away,
past the oceans blue line,
Separated and solitary,
its division so fine,
That the echo of color is lost in its sea,
Each singular shade left alone then to be,
As each is remembered
in the print of some page,
Crumpled and yellow
and fading with age,
Left empty and dying in one's memory
As the ocean waves on, in tranquility.

African drums, African drums,
Something 'bout your culture hums,
Must be your jungles, must be your rain,
Must be your wildlife, your forests and plains.

Certainly, citizens, you all must agree,
That there's both good and bad
in the fruit of a tree,
That a baby is born
and a man comes to be,
And his mind and his heart
is his own, can't you see?
And neither belongs to a color or creed,
Both good and bad in humanity's seed.
For all people, all colors, all faiths,
yes, all men,
Have their light and their wisdom,
their darkness and then,
They fumble and stumble,
rise, fall and sing,
It's their own souls, which are tolling, 
the bells that we ring.

African drums, African drums,
Something 'bout your culture numbs.
Must be the fact, that we'll cease to be,
Must be the split in humanity.
With a nation of black
and a nation of white,
Each then to stumble
and fall in man's night.
And understanding and compassion
simply won't be,
If each is a-brewing their own cup of tea.
Yes, separate cups of humanity.

African drums, African drums,
Something 'bout your culture hums.
African drums African drums,
Something 'bout your culture numbs.

By Linda A. Copp
May 21, 1970 ©