Happy Independence Day Poem by Phillip Nine Mafunga

Have we not stayed for too long on this watch?
For forty-one years have we staggered through these soiled beach sands
Waves of dreams on our shores kept alive
Hopes long washed to sea, so they knew
The sea, just but a bucketful of phantoms
To our unsuspecting innocence, fallacies to us, sold they
And our hearts embraced it all as independence.

With a dud, we were fobbed off
And those amongst us who saw it, never lived to tell their story
Some had their bodies bake in the sun on hilltops
Some mummified in concrete casts at the bottom of lakes
Some who have lived to see the horrors of this day
Like Gideon of old, hide in the caved minds in fear
Some have rather found refuge back in the Egypt of our former captivity!

Happy Independence Day, my people
I hope this makes sense though
' A people can be independent without being free'
Happy Independence Day, anyhow
Freedom is not a preserve of the select few
Freedom is not a legislative grant from government
Nor freebies from donors: freedom comes rather by the people!

I hope this does scare all of us
That the Chinese are all over our land
Raping our virgin land without restraint
Ask those in Chiadzwa
Yes enquire from them in Chingwizi and Chilonga
You can find out from those in Dinde and Hwange
Is this how they spell INDEPENDENCE elsewhere?

HAPPY 41st Independence Day, Zimbabwe!
17 April 2021