She holds onto her broken heart and winces
“Who will cry for me when I am gone?”
She turns her head and looks back
Behind her she sees the child soldiers,
The abused girls,
The malnourished and the sick children.
Mama Africa groans in pain
“My light is fast dying. What will happen to my children when I am gone?”
She gnashes her teeth and the hot tears pour down her cheeks
“Oh life” she sighs.
“See now, I will be forgotten forever to think that I have toiled in vain.”
Her body trembles as her grief overwhelms her and drags her to the ground
“My older children are scattered all over the earth
My night is falling, my days are numbered
Who will carry on my name?
Who fight for these young and weak ones?"
She calls to her children
“South Africa! Zimbabwe! Congo! Kenya! Burundi! Liberia!”
But there is no answer
Her voice falters
She raises tear filled eyes
All she hears is echoes
She bites her lower lip drawing blood from it
Her nails dig into the dark soil as she sighs
“Beautiful children, so beautiful,
So many that I am too weak to name them all.
From here I can see death.
He even cries for me
He will not take me,
He stands away waiting,
Giving me a chance to find my strength and to unite my children
But he does not know,
He does not know that my children are my strength.”
She looks around and is suddenly struck with fresh panic and again she screams
“Africa, where are you Africa?"
She falls to the ground,
Her mouth is filled with sand,
Her face is a confused map made from dried tear stains
She continues to lie there, with no desire to look up
I have observed her for so long,
My tears blind me as I search for my brothers and sisters
I call out their names through my tears,
When I find them I will say to them
“Let us go home Africa.
We have not been home for so long,
A lot has gone wrong since we left
Our mother calls
She is dying
She needs us
We can give her hope
We can give her life
We are strong
We are young
Let us go home and I know
She will smile”
« return.