Thoughts and Memories
 
 

Born too late to give a helping hand
To a country by the world besieged,
The colony's rebellious son of Britannia grand
Where, within its borders, an allegiance was forged.

Lenin's cancer they fought to save our land
And lives were lost, but on they trudged,
My soul with them, my youth no friend.
But waiting, the fire within us burned.

The years rolled by and Rhodesia's end
To an unseen enemy our land auctioned,
Sold to a future already pre planned
To be part of Africa's black united.

As the fathers fled to escape the trend,
And with them Rhodesia's daughters also departed,
My future condemned to search on lonely sands
The residue, not of my generation, in Zimbabwe's hands.

We live, but to what our labours lend?
In countries abroad the same rot does spread.
For those who left depression, the scars don't mend.
The stepping stones leading to futility finally realized.

To the remnant a legacy of the defeated,
A pill bitter and everlasting, hard to blend.
Our loyalties ridiculed, our history tormented.
But the fire burns on, justice the demand.

On boastful thrones the rulers are seated
Opening up the past; let them be damned.
On the remnant the dust is thickly gathered,
Cleaned, it reveals the green and white band.

The bird might blink, its last role remembered;
The lion may still flesh devour, and cause defend;
The pick may toil with a duty unfulfilled;
Underestimate not the children of the Meridian.

Hans Wolbert
Harare, April 1995.
 

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