Poem For Marius Schoon Poem by Frank Bana

The Boers blew up Marius Schoon
His very own people turned traitor on him
He was activist teacher and volunteer
Well maybe he was a communist
In those days they blew up communists
I'm sure sometimes they still do

Except it wasn't Marius they got
Exiled in Angola's own deep south
His wife Jenny little daughter Katryn
Were the bodies splashed around a room
By the blind force of a parcel bomb
Delivered to his infant son

He was tense all the time shaggy and bright
Poet hippie-like curmudgeon
You better not cut up the supper meat wrong
He called me 'f-ing liberal' in rage affection
And never cursed the names of traitors
Even when forced to flee in the night

Cancer caught him in the long run
After the walls had been torn right down
He had known prison exile family loss
Democracy sweet in all its tasks
And all through the hearings commissions of truth
With his killers he would not reconcile

And I never thought for a moment he should.