Poetry In Motion

My body thawed in the warmth of the morning and melted in the heat of the midday sun
The naked blue skies had not seen the covering of the spring clouds,
Dripping with sweat, my blistered feet failed me crossing the streams void of their flow
Barefooted and bruised first grade was my hope of tomorrow
Though mother and father laboured to wipe away my sorrow

In the streets, were loud footprints of a hungry people,
in the homes of the poor were silent tears of starvation,
The ghetto was a breeding of disease and crime,
a camp were victims parade with no mask to hide this brutish reality,
a place where the shadow of death turned our day into night

The falcon, the vulture, the mocking bird even the highflying eagle
The hyena, the elephant, the lion had no strength to stand the struggle
Mothers weep on their knees, faces wrinkled with the pain of hunger and starvation,
tears dripping haplessly as the land was being ravaged by the beasts of drought and of man

Prowling viciously like a lion, politics walked out from the ashes of the famine
With a brutal fist raised high in the streets it conned democracy and
the ballot was made a loot of people's rights and justice
A suppression of the voice of freedom and independence
A violation of legislation and betrayal of the integrity of the rule of law

'A morsel of bread for a thousand dollars, a measure of wheat for two thousand..., hurt not of the upper-room, spare the oil for the masters' cake',
This was the time the hand of politics found solace in the treasury
unbudgeted expenditure crushing down the walls of our economy
Darkness falling down like a thick black curtain upon our commerce
Eclipsing a bright shining November of my eighth grade
Black Friday blurring my hope for a future once prophesied bright and beautiful....

shall I then sing praises to the deeds of my fathers before you
Shall I tell their story with pride and a boastful heart...
No..!,
Though in my veins courses the blood of my ancestors
In my palms are traces of the paths they walked to discover this heritage
And in my heart is no doubt that I am their son..
my voice shall speak that which I see through the echoes of time That which my footprints has written on the sands I've trod...

My friends, I am Zimbabwean, this which I've spoken before you, let it not be heard outside of this symposium,
Let these walls around us be not the enemy I fear
But a companion of comfort, love, care and trustworthiness
For outside are tigers, hyenas and lions that awaits to feed on human blood, sweat and tears