Would
that we reached our truth quickly
On
commencing our journey,
When
voices like fire raged firm promise
From
ramparts fortified by emancipation’s cry.
Would
that our truth wove this patchwork of loose seams,
And molded our collective face, a fractured sum of its beauteous parts.
This
could have prevented the disease eating at our hearts,
A
hail of bullets and a million wasted lives.
Whither
our truth when we hide the earth’s gift of bread
From
diverted gaze?
From
our slum-kissed citadels, we thrust its crumbs into the outstretched hands
Of
children with hollowed-out eyes.
Truth was left at the water’s edge when we
struck an unfair bargain
For
inheritance and toil.
Alas
a resultant sludge of our dark designs
Has
decimated life, our eternal mother.
This
journey to our truth is arduous in the harsh daylight
Of
our indolence.
A disheveled multitude and I gather at an
assembly
To
hand-wring and feign blindness.
We
are the mirror image of a few of finery, cunning
And
the lore of our diverse roots
Shrill
prayers and discordant testimonies.
The
multitude speaks its anxiety in a medley of tongues as it asks
‘Wayfarer,
do you see with our eyes? Do you dream as we dream?’
I
answer, ‘With mine and the eyes of a thousand of you I see naught,
As
our eyes are shut. And for the past thousand nights I have dreamed naught,
But
a contorted truth, the same as our journey’.
