ONCE again, the nation has been plunged into mourning.

I write this week’s piece with a heavy heart, a heart that has been shredded by yet another loss. However, in this grief, we are consoled by the fact that we have been left with something to hold on to as a country and as the world.

A legacy!

We have been waiting for the rain but it is tears that are pouring on the dry soil, our soil.

Who do we tell of the tragedy that has befallen our arts sector?

Do we remain mum?

Do we shut the voices of the agony of our hearts?

But as that great writer Charles Mungoshi told us, Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura. Gone from out midst is a voice that spoke, eloquently, through the might of the pen.

We no longer have that literary genius to give us answers to the meaning of life. 

The cruel hand of death keeps on plucking the gems of our society with no mercy.

We have hardly recovered from the loss of music legend Oliver ‘Tuku’ Mtukudzi and now we have to grapple with this tragedy.

Where do we go from here? 

Will the earth ever stop swallowing our best, our heroes?

Perhaps Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva ( How time passes). But the passing of time should at least give us respite.

Our hearts cannot fathom the tragedies that have befallen us. We need a breather from these horrors that are now nightmares.

Death, you are our enemy!

How can we Walk Still when the milkman is not delivering milk; when the milkman is milking our strength, our resolve to shape our great nation into becoming a giant in the global arts community?

How can we live in the rolling world when the sun continues to set on our arts industry? 

Your work was flawless, it earned you recognition the world over. But it is not the flawlessness of your pieces that impressed us the most; that is not what we will remember.

It is the content of your work that will forever appeal to us.

You told the story of Zimbabwe. You told the story of the African.

You did not shy from the issues that matter.

You did not sing for your supper — you said it as it was.

Your art was not compromised.

Your values, identity and beliefs, as an African, dictated to your art.

We will not mourn you.

We will celebrate your life.

Your works shall forever remind us of who we are; where we are going; and, most importantly, where we have come from.

You have not died Charles — heroes do not die, they fade away and we cling on to their memories.

We pray that another will take up your mantle and continue from where you left.

We pray that the younger generation borrows heavily from your works.

You were a prolific writer in English, but so were you too in your mother tongue, Shona.

You were proud of who you were. 

It is only now, in death, that we know you once met the Queen of England.

Had it been others in our midst, our ears would have fallen off from being reminded on a daily basis that they had shared tea with the Queen.

The encounter did not stop you from tackling the issue of colonialism and its attendant evils. The younger generation has the colossal task of tackling neo-colonialism with their minds and pens.

I hope they can do it in the manner you did. Go well doyen of African literature.

But Some Kinds of Wounds never completely heal.