Apartheid. Poem by Mario, Lucien, Rene Odekerken

A line drawn not on maps, but on skin,
a wall built not of stone, but of laws.
Footsteps echo on separate streets,
shadows stretch but never meet.

A mother watches her child walk miles,
past schools she cannot enter.
A father's hands, rough with labor,
build a world he is never allowed to own.

Names reduced to numbers,
dreams reduced to silence.
Eyes trained to look down,
to shrink, to disappear.


But even in the silence,
the earth remembers.
Footsteps will not always walk apart,
voices will not always whisper.


The wall will crack.
The line will fade.
And the land will speak one name.