Thunder Rumbled! ! Poem by Siyabonga A Nxumalo

He woke up to a good place,
Not knowing death awaited him.
He greeted the morning sun
With a warm smile and a positive
Mind and attitude.

Then thunder rumbled,
Wind blew fiercely, yet
He did not know that death
By a fiendish torture awaited him,
At the hands of those he trusted.

He woke up to a good place,
With the cries of humming birds
And glow of sunlight on
Yellow and white water lilies.

Then thunder rumbled,
And wind blew fiercely.

What he wanted was not to die,
But to live and to return again to his people.
He had always wanted a son,
But what man does not want a son?
That is a will of nature.

Yet his shop was looted,
Him tortured and set alight, and
Left to die a painful death.

Thunder rumbled,
Lightning stroked, and
He suffered a fiendish torture
At the hands of fellow Africans.

Robert Sobukwe said……
“Africa is one and desires to be one, and
Nobody, I repeat, nobody has the right to
Balkanize our land”.

He didn’t know that,
An African will suffer a fiendish torture,
At the hands of fellow Africans.

Patrice Lumumba said……
“The day will come when history will speak…
Africa will write its own history…
It will be a history of glory and dignity”.

Little did he know that,
Indeed Africa will write its own history.
But it won’t be history of glory and dignity.
But history of dejection.

Thunder rumbled and
Hypocrites rejoiced at the expense
Of fellow Africans pain.

His sins would not equal his life,
Even if he had any.
All he wanted was not to die,
But to live,
to return again to his people.

But thunder rumbled, and
Wind blew fiercely, and
A blithering imbecile turned lunatics
Against him.

Kwame Nkrumah said…
“The forces that unite us are intrinsic
And greater than the superimposed influences
That keeps us apart”
He said…
“I am not African because I was born in Africa,
But because Africa was born in me”.

He didn’t know that Africans will suffer
Savage attacks at the hands of fellow Africans.

Julius Nyerere said…
“Violence is unnecessary and costly,
Peace is the only way”.

Yet thunder rumbled,
Wind blew fiercely and Africans slaughtered
Each other like vile creatures.

Patrice Lumumba said….
“Territorial barriers must be done away with,
So that Africans may travel freely between
The various African states.
Africans, let us rise up!
Africans, let us unite! ”

Phansi ngeXenophobia ma-Africa amahle.

Siya Nxumalo
17/04/2015