Africa: An Easter Tragedy Poem by Frances Macaulay Forde

At the Magistrate's Court in Harare, a crowd gathered outside
weeping for men and women who carry an invisible cross.

Thousands have suffered at the hands of baton-wielding zealots,
masquerading as Police, in a land where lives have little price.

Is this commercialism gone mad?Trading in muscle and limbs
feeding their families with the blood of countrymen and women?

Who weeps for Mugabe ~ he who styles himself after Jesus continually
resurrected, who pretends to heave his country away from Colonial roots?

Why should we cry for a Chinese Palace, wifely shopping sprees in Paris;
a man protected from his own voters by his army of security enforcers?

His people no longer believe he leads for them ~ have seen how he dictates,
feathers his own nest and the cronies he keeps very close ~ walled in by sin.

How long will millions of starving, beaten people wait for their turn at life,
their chance to eat, to sleep peacefully in a khaya built in prosperity and peace?

Will the tears shed this Easter encourage the world to stand up for Zimbabwe?


Please NOTE: in retirement I have closed most of my web pages including francesmacaulayforde and poetscornerwa. Both of these pages have now been taken over by a bot. However, I have retained my Wordpress BLOG or my ETSY shop.