Poems

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Madiba’s hand

Your touch
Silences me
A presence unlike anything
I have felt or known

Entranced by the heat of your hand
I barely hear your questions
This child of yours
Is rocked to peace

Your great hand
Swallows mine
Madiba’s hand
The same hand
That wiped your tears/
Ploughed a limestone quarry/
Threw dust on the graves of comrades
Moulded freedom

As your hand moves on to others
I am still lost

Lost somewhere
In the stretch of your palm

This side of P.E

Our lives have walked
These streets
Feet pounded demarcated turf

How many square metres
was our P.E?

somewhere between
livingstone hospital
and gelvan park cemetery
entire lives passed

somewhere between
bottlestores and churches
salvation was found
on our side of P.E

for others P.E was
Motherwell/New Brighton/Zwide
Stuck away, outside
The other side

For others P.E was
Cotsworld/Lorraine/Summerstrand
Holy ground for the chosen few
The other side

Somewhere between
Our side
Their side
That side
Still lies a gaping divide
Barcelona too far from Linton Grange

Our P.E
Where land defined dreams
Inside

whole

I am whole
i will not shatter like fragile bone

i reshape/remake/reconstruct

a constantly evolving me



Copyright: shelley barry