President Nelson Mandela's Inauguration 1994
Madiba lives …
Tag Archive: African Voice
Soaking,
the rains settle,
meandering over jagged faultlines of our memory.
Drenching,
the rains settle,
streaming through veins,
the thud-thudding of the heartbeat of Africa.
Absorbing,
the rains that settle,
within each of us,
herald rebirth.
And,
if you listen,
if you strain to hear,
while shedding the raucous noise of your inner turmoil.
If you listen,
the whispers of the ancestors,
speak to us all,
lending us warmth,
urging us to stand,
even though we may
stumble,
even though we may fall.
are we broken by spoken barbs spewing out of sewers cloaked beneath acceptable garbs while the blades of splintered humanity are sharpened into lethal shards of ‘my country right or wrong’ under the comfortable charade of clinging onto feigned piety dragged along weaving new lies obfuscating what’s right and what’s wrong waving flags like swords wielding swords to behead and to subjugate the many who’ve forever been on the wrong side of the gate shut out of the dream pummelled by untruths of working hard and doing more and shutting up because we need the money the greenback the notes the coins the oil the designer innerwear that barely shrouds the stench of putrid opulence of festering greed of capital and influence and power ripping out each seed by the by wishing a better life for all a hasty goodbye because when love and life and hopes and dreams and aspirations and desires and aches and yearning for something better just a bit better not much not much at all except for some grain for the famished and respite for the numberless banished cast away into the currents of the seas swept along islands of stillness breaking ashore with the waves of happenstance.
so yes
yes
“that’s how i got to be here”, the immigrant says …
no blue monday for you
when tears moisten your eyes
and the horizons seem leaden
weighed down by grey skies
when
everyone
everything
suffocates
and life seems like a sad circus
a comical convergence of fates
may you always
always
pause …
to
remember …
that
you are human too
and
that
you feel
deep in your marrow
your entire being through
the sting of griefs fire
and
the ache of unquenched desire
felt
deep
felt true
within you
