Still A Blessed Untouchable Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

This problem that bothers many,
This poverty and hunger others
live with daily, renders me to
proclaim that I am a blessed
untouchable.

I could grope around in the darn,
without as much as a candle to
light up where to lay my head.
The faggots from yesterday are
in my hand for a light. I let
go of them. I confess having been
there, I am a blessed untouchable.

I saw one little piece of soap,
Shared for months by more than five.
Till it thinned and disappeared in
one bath. This does render me to
proclaim this life of the blessed
untouchable.

Those who touched me touched my
poverty, which evaporated, a
vapor pulverized. It left inside
me, this blessed untouchable.

Having seen and heard poverty,
churning inside some stomach of
a kid, I sit here on the stool
of my memory. I cry for many the
tears that are the waterfall nobody
hears.

If we could put them together on a
slope, we would hear the sound of
the falling water on the cheeks
turned rocks by hunger. We see
the cheeks of ours in the mirror.
We know we have seen the blessed
untouchables.

Give a Mother Theresa wet wipe.
I could not wipe the cheeks dry.
I have joined the lament of many.
Can poverty stand inside many and
speak inside many and ask what we
blessed untouchables remember.

We sit on seat of our memory.
This throne thrown at us by
time with her luck bearing left
hand that reached me and you,
calls us to act. We know the rule.
Share and share like the ants do.

Seen the colony of ants sharing?
They get into your kitchen. They
create the load and launch in on
their backs. No pulling and hiding
stuff from others. We all labor
night and day. We share the load
we are going to hide from the house
owner.

He does not like ants anyone. Who
liked the untouchables of India like
me and you. Who knew us when we were
poor and had tears like a waterfall
when put together. We call it hard
work, and say it got us here. We
turn heads at the group like us when
we were untouchable. Yet now we laugh
when someone declares us the blessed
untouchables.

I have loved the touch of others. It
is warm and so are the smiles. I join
the world in its desire to help and
stop the waterfall of tears and the
din of noise put together when hunger
causes the stomach to sing the song,
whose tune says, I will be hungry and
hungry everyday till the drought ceases.

They have talked of climate change.
Me and you, we listened and hoped.
They have stolen clean air even.
The poor who gave us the second rung,
on which we stand feel it. The land in
the Pacific Islands has disappeared.
We live still on the second step,
me and you, these blessed untouchables.

Seems like we are next, for we being
on the second rung on this shaky
ladder of ours, will soon fall with
the water rising and threatening to
swallow the poor, hungry and lost.
Pray we make it to another step.
I hear they are raising the bar,
in a place called Silicon Valley.
Shall we remain the blessed, lovely
untouchables that society made happen.


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