Celebrating
How do you celebrate a legend
with the name, Pulling a Branch from a Tree?
Surely our heroes should be Ironheart or Thunderfist or
Oldsoul and Brightmind. Not Troublemaker.
Oh my what trouble he caused.
How do you celebrate a rebel
who protests the quality of university food
and is suspended for his activism. Sports and dancing
were not enough to keep his mind from
questioning the world around him.
How do you celebrate a runaway
who refuses an arranged wedding within
the royal family he was adopted by, then joins his first
political party while living among the poor,
the miners, labourers and outcasts.
How do you celebrate a law student
who is denied his degree because he failed
exams three times but became secretary of the ANC
Youth League, arguing for the African way,
not anything brought by colonisers.
How do you celebrate a man who
makes nothing of his life, yet makes life his
everything. Everyone knows his name. Everyone sings
his praise. Everyone now celebrates Madiba.
Everyone must celebrate all lives.
Do you celebrate life in all
its varied richness and diversity and all
that is different and once called evil and wrong.
Do you celebrate the disparate and
unequal, the dark and the light.
Do you celebrate celebrity
because it offers you a fantasy of a life
smothered in wealth of riches, pampered in fame.
Do you celebrate the waste and greed,
and the shallow living grave.
Do you celebrate the smile
given freely in the street. The nod of
silent thanks given without need for surfeit words.
Do you celebrate the heart felt hug
within which all cares melt.
You reading this, just celebrate;
every precious moment of this oh too short
a life that is taken for granted and squandered as if,
another can be microwaved into existence.
Cherish and celebrate every breath.
Celebrate the soft quiet moment
between breaths, where the silence of
knowing can be heard singing the secrets of life.
Celebrate the eternal moment, the is,
that is all, and forever will be.
YOU ARE READING
Change the World
PoetryPoems about changing the world by being true to ourselves and expressing who we really are through the things we do in every day life. So we can reclaim our strength and overcome the inequity and stupidity of the crass and greedy.
