Justice - Shell Bird Poem by Mary Mc Creath

Written in 1976 after attending a workshop by Sipho Sepamla an African Poet. Who shared with us the background to his poems. On returning home from the meeting I was looking at a bird I had made out of shells at the time and it reflected for me the situation of the black people of South Africa he described in his works and how they were being treated.

Shell bird,
a man made thing.
Shaped by my hand
but cannot sing
given a form,
not of your choice,
how can you sing
without a voice.