The eagles flew from the glen
Crying: pieces of eight, pieces of eight
no more scars, no more scars,
The Apyamwene called the Lubuga as she ripped the bark
of the omutuba tree,
Wanjiku looked up from her gikua tubers
Look, look, the sun is setting over her vines

The eagles now wore night vision glasses and winged
their way to
Wanjiku's garden,
Wings lopsided in assymetrical pattern
as the precision cameras locked on their target
Pieces of eight, pieces of eight...

The local policeman appeared with his baton:
get out of the way get out of the way, out out out,
As he moved over to the sacred land with his shoes
full of vomit
he cut down the Lubuga's tree
Don't step here she cried
Not with your shoes!

"Out, out, out, the eagles are coming the eagles are
coming
he roared
What eagles the Apyamwene asked
Your presence in this country is illegal, he barked
you are the barriers to development with your backward
ideas,
you are to return to Angoche at once!

First came a bullock cart,
Then a Bedford lorry
and finally
a stage, an outdoor stage
Isis rose from the depths of Lolwe and shook her
head: what eagles, what scars,
I will heal my own,
I will regenerate my own

A curtain fell over her face as a strange voice
shouted in the glen
Lights camera action!

Fingers snapping, children dying,
a flash of light in the distance,
Fingers snapping, children dying,
the wingèd squadron approaches,
fingers snapping children dying
the wingèd squadron approaches.

The policeman grinned sheepishly as eagles in the
night vision goggles banked over the rivers,
lakes, mountains, islands crates and forests of
Africa,
Fingers snapping , children dying,
Wanjiku refused to run,
Fingers snapping , children dying
The Lubuga refused to budge,
Fingers snapping, children dying
The Apyamwene hauled the Sultan to his feet,
Fingers snapping, children dying

(Drumbeat gets frenzied)

they came from the east
and the west,
and from the south and
the north,
from the matrix of the Congo
the breasts of Kilimanjaro
the sands of the Kalahari,
heaving and breathign again as Isis hovered above
unseen,
The Joliba, the Nile, the Zambezi and the Congo like a
mighty four headed python reared up
to protect its own,
Mosi oa Tunya churned into the pit of the earth's
stomach,
the phantom trees of Kariba rose,
deadwood no more,

what are you still doing here?
the policeman asked angrily,

Cant you see the eagles need to land
With their pieces of eight
I warned you, you are here illegally

Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight
The lopsided wingèd hosts,
No more scars, no more scars, no more scars, no more
scars
The lopsided wingèd hosts
Pieces of eight, pieces of eight,
No more pieces, pieces of scars, scars of pieces, no
more eights,
The eagles from the glen.

(the drums stop abruptly)