Mandela: My Distant Friend
Dear friend,
Goodness has tied us together
Nature has made it so
Common destiny we share
Fortune has made us friends
Friend,
Your age my age
But a million moons younger
Your season of birth, the dates,
Same as mine, the work of God
Lo, similar path to life we trod
Friend,
Your life I adorn, your time is good
The trials tho’, but in them your glory lay
Your values I love, your struggle I share
Your ideals I cherish, bliss to earth you are.
Friend,
Your name swells my head;
Sending a wave across my frame:
The work you did,
The fight you fought,
Like awe, erecting the hairs on my body
Friend,
You will go to grave not as a fighter
Not for weakness though,
But in victory, you’ve seen your struggle succeed
And your dark past of assaults gone,
Friend,
But the brighter now and ‘morrow of freedom
Lightened by a free and equal nation
Where creed and colour all banished to death
Humans, now, all are, black and white, the coloured;
All you’ve glimpsed by the grace of God
My dearest friend,
Distance apart us may keep
Age may range us further apart
My dream is you to see
Whether it be or not, be sure you’ve touched me.
Time says, you are the hero of our world, my friend dearest.
By Adegbilero Idowu on 5th September, 2009 @
Ibadan.
Rolihlahla: the Trouble Maker
Born the eighteenth day of July nineteen eighteen
The Excellency of days, the jewel of time
Vegetations greening with grace, villagers gleaning,
Food, abundant and surplus, a time of harvest.
Born to a season of ease
When nature never disdain its splendour
Sufficient rainfall displacing stress
The beginning of a new half, moon lighting the night
Madiba the great, Rolihlahla the trouble maker
Who troubled the system to humble its rumble
Never giving up to injustice
With his blood fighting inhumanity
Thembu royal descendant birthed into apartheid
Men profaned by the disdainful act of separate rule
Indulging bestiality to protect the few
In a society with Mandela such naivety would falter
Who would sacrifice personal ease to rescue peace
Slaughtered own interest to see equality reign
Killing his ego to enthrone democracy for all in the south
Choosing an inmate to be for endless years to see a mate in all
men
Now that they are one your trouble is o’er Great Madiba!
By Adegbilero Idowu, July 18, 2008 at Ijan Ekiti, Nigeria
