AYANDA BILLIE
Four Poems
Mindful
So young.
You are bereft of a future
Though your real life had yet to begin
So young you know.
You are talking like old timers
Lost in reminiscences
So young so much.
Or perhaps this is your old age
For the hour of your death is near
So young you have lived.
As you well knew
That these days we don’t live
Until we grow grey and frail.
Sobukwe
Present times have erased your name
New icons have taken the centre stage
Smiling for the cameras
Azania sobering at the corner
In no time
Their cold hearts
Will think of you
An unchained mind
Those who shared the shackles
With you in the Island
Today are towers
With new posture
They are sleeping with the lights on
Afraid of the dark
Nightmares in their mansions
With screams of so many
It was your love for your country
Azanian child.
Breath of love that sustained you
Those who love Azania will remember you
Great Failings
We will leave this earth
knowing nothing
learned nothing
still lost in the light
dark as the day
we were born
we are (still) chasing
symbols of our destruction
that clinches us
in sorrow forever
poor in life
poor in death.
Someday – My Love
You
My love, my beginning my end
I have nothing
I can offer at this moment
This you must know
I am born of so little
With ordinary love,
Chasing for tomorrow
My distant future
You have touched me
In time of penury
In the heart of the hearts
Giving direction to my l ife.
Bear it with me, my dear
The dark cloud will be torn asunder
Someday.
As I loved
So gentle
Vulnerable, sensitive
And yet private
Later you changed all that
And told me that the future is not for us
For which reasons are impossible to find
That was the end.