our school, to join the revolution,
for soil and for trees and for blood,
each with its distinctive colour.
some have snickered about it since,
as if the ones still filled with life today
are wounds that will never crust.
it is true that the body is landlord
over itself, this they do not know.
everything in the end must give way
to how that body decides to move
past qomatsi's memory in the heart.
healing takes a lifetime, and healing
drinks burdens of alcohol.
gathered
here in this room we touch your face,
feel your young presence, look for
some way to endure our life of blues.
From "Mbera: New & Collected Poems" (Canopic Publishing)