The African Spirit Lives On In Her Poem by Jessica Nobubele Frame

The African sun beats down upon her
It scorches her skin with unrelenting cruelty
That skin that once was as soft as innocence
Now tells tails of a life full of hardship

Baby on her back
Firewood on her head
She takes the gravel road home
The same road she walks day after day

Her aching feet take her back to the pain of loosing her first child
Her sore neck brings back memories of her husband
Who has long forgotten them in his dreams of a better life
And the constant throbbing in her back is a reminder
Of the threat of disease that is slowly crushing her body

She has seen sorrow
She has felt heartache
She has known rejection
She has understood what it is to taste bitterness

Still
The African spirit lives on in her
Her heart beats like an African drum
Her mind dances to the tune of the marimbas
And her soul longs to be washed in waves of redemption

She is an African woman
Pushed to the edge by circumstances
But holding on with long-suffering hope
Because of the promise of the African dawn
The rising and the setting of new possibilities