Identify New Perspectives Poem by Margaret Alice Second

To be extraneous at work, listen to voices
proclaiming the overwhelming amount of
work, knowing I'm the cause of my own non-
participation, see my inability to string vivid
sentences in legal parlance as I translate
into Afrikaans, knowing I contribute nothing
to the excellence produced in the assembly
lines - is unnerving, especially when

Checking my own work and losing faith in
everything I said, changing every sentence
until a mutilated document bleeds profusely
in front of me - my spirit failing until I read
the encouraging words - tell the story of your
life as you want it to be - meaning I should
tell of my strength, enthusiasm and delight
in little things, the beautiful prospect of

Contributing to solving the civil service fragility
in African states, my determination to stream-
line every sentence, my dream of writing some-
thing stirring to energise my compatriots, to
pinpoint problems and help solving them or
identify new perspectives and indicate new
leads to create a new form of being where
individuals accept they create their own

Worlds - and can change them also

[29 October 2014]