Dancing Dewdrop (R) Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Getting back into the swing of things after leaving
with a rush of adrenaline, isn't as easy & obvious
as it seems, the subject ‘water meter reading' isn't
the height of delight and the dear complaining lady
attached reams of old statements claiming they're
all wrong: it's her good right to do this - but why

did the universe inflict this on me, don't I carry my
own cross & struggle in my own way, why this when
I only ask a merry yarn by a good conversationalist
or a comedian like Spike Milligan, maybe a moralist
like adorable William Topaz McGonagall, I know the
troubled lady bemoaning the water-reading-mistakes

made to date does not mean harm - but, oh, the bore-
dom of it, tying my mind down while forcing it to note
the reason why she dotes on sending endless letters
to the Office of the Premier and State President, why
doesn't she know a Zulu King doesn't care about the
little people out there, only about his big income and

cronyism, many wives and innumerable kids, the ANC
is a dog devouring the country quite innocently as they
think this is what the Europeans did & can't see where
financial troubles originate as Africa's rich in diamonds
& gold - arguing the term ‘corruption' makes no sense
while slaughtering the goose laying the golden eggs &

closing teachers' colleges, now there are less than the
few left after Apartheid's evil Nazi pogroms, destroying
hope & morale by scourging the county from all things
African in their hallucinations, luckily culture survived -
but rural communities have even less access to basic
education as Zuma tries to keep people as simple as

possible - to be malleable, he learned from Apartheid,
you see, people imitate their previous masters in order
to also be masterful: ah, back to this letter making me
feel like hara-kiri right here, I must convey her sorrow
to get help with her mounting debts - thus I began by
singing old Dutch hymns going up & down the stairs

to wake up my brain, proving I've no dementia as yet,
if only I were the ballerina dancing Dewdrop en pointe
to the Waltz of the Flowers in Tchaikovsky's heavenly
Nutcracker ballet…