Rhythms

Cicadas noisy in the trees,
Reggae in the next room,
Voices singing far off...

Are they the same voices I just heard?

Or does the sound linger only in my mind?

The Struggle goes on, far away,
Thousands of miles away.
Now it has come here.

To me.

I have been touched deeply.
I cry at the films: Mandela, The Last Grave at Dimbaza,
Sitting amidst those who have seen it, have lived it,
Confirmed by them,
Made real by their knowing.

Tears.

Unwelcome.
With Anger.
Uncontrollable.

Lash out--at a world so cruel,
So uncaring,
So full of hate and fear,
And ugliness.

And then the songs begin.
The rhythms.
The movement.
The spirit.
The spirit lives.

In the music.
In the rhythms.
In the souls of the people.

The Struggle will be won.
Someday.
Somehow.

I feel it in the music.

Written during the summer of 1987 when I was on the Resident Staff for the South African
Orientation Program at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. Copyright@ 1998 Sunny.

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