Before the Sun
by Charles Mungoshi
Intense blue morning
promising early heat
and later in the afternoon,
heavy rain.
The bright chips
fly from the sharp axe
for some distance through the air,
arc,
and eternities later,
settle down in showers
on the dewy grass.
It is a big log:
but when you are fourteen
big logs
are what you want.
The wood gives off
a sweet nose-cleansing odour
which (unlike sawdust)
doesn't make one sneeze.
It sends up a thin spiral
of smoke which later straightens
and flutes out
to the distant sky: a signal
of some sort,
or a sacrificial prayer.
The wood hisses,
The sparks fly.
And when the sun
finally shows up
in the East like some
latecomer to a feast
I have got two cobs of maize
ready for it.
I tell the sun to come share
with me the roasted maize
and the sun just winks
like a grown-up.
So I go ahead, taking big
alternate bites:
one for the sun,
one for me.
This one for the sun,
this one for me:
till the cobs
are just two little skeletons
in the sun.
Analysis (my opinion)
In the first stanza, the poet is referring blue morning to the young age and afternoon as the old age. As a young child, you dream about your future and you look forward for that, but as you grow older, you realise success is not easy to gain. You might think some experiences are useless and unimportant, but everything that you have experienced turns out to be a benefit later in the future and they help you settle down.
As a young fourteen year old, you like to face challenges and adventure and look for difficulties instead of running away from them. After the hard challenge, you can feel the sweet sense of accomplishment and doesn't do harm to anybody unlike trying to finish a challenge the easy way or by cheating.
The achievement after sacrificing your free time and hobbies, can build up and even though it might be weak and not stable at first, later contributes to living triumphant life. It is very competitive and the latecomers don't get what they want.
The sun here might represent parents or other adult as it just watches the poet enjoy his maize instead of joining him so that he can have more. Parents try to do whatever the child wants and give them everything until nothing is left just like the two little skeletons left after finishing the maize. They give up their own time for the sake of their children. Children usually don't realise the sacrifice and just enjoy what they get just like the poet enjoying the maize which was meant for the sun.
