The Wind Does Not Know My Name Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

I sit in these windy verandas fail
Watching the sky with questions,
That are mind boggling and sad,
I wanted to be famous when a girl,
Now the wind was speaking one truth,
It did not know my name.

I wonder what to do now that I know
That it takes more than madness to be
This piece of fame that graces the red carpets that carry one's name afar,
For all the trying and acting in
Dramas big and small, I remain,
The mystery hidden inside my person,
Unknown even to myself.

I do believe in the tabloids,
For they tear to pieces a life,
Shred it into strips and toss it out,
For the wind to smell and broadcast,
Its seed going into sods that turn
Pages smelling like stolen fragrances
That make readers sneeze into the air,
Where the wind catches a name and run with it,
With readers glad they had no fame for they wood be in tatters,
Thankful that the wind does knot know their name.

Who wants to live a life of running from the wind I ask.
Who wants to be known only for eating,
Remembered only in receipts from the village mall?
For it publishes the mundane record that says I was broke, to die broke and infamous.

The wind says I have to walk the tight rope with a walking stick,
For nobody will forget that deed,
Especially if I take my dog up there with me.
For people always remember the bark of dogs.
For they tell the story of man.
For hearing their bark in the wind says 'we have arrived.
This is the porch where our patents lived and loved.
Where kisses never stopped being released into the air, for we are proof that happened.
It needs no wind to assure us it did.