These Unique Chains That Bind Us Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

From today and yesterday
Monday to Friday year in
And year out there have
Been these unique chains
That bind us so close that
We can hear the sound
As our feet take steps
To far away lands where
Our thoughts lead as if
We are on an invisible leash
For they pull and push inside
And finally let us wander
On beaches white and sandy
Not known to many but a few.

It is connections rare
We find when we walk near
Rivers and see grass grow
On the edge and know that
A picture of us is reflecting
On the water saying there
Is a person inside who cannot
Talk but sees and knows that
Life is more experienced than
Seen, touched and felt like
Icing on a knife when you spread
It over a cake. You lick it
Once and know who eats it will
know the genius that made it and
Be bound to love for such is life.

For to see oneself in another
Shape and form on ripples in
The water with curves formed
By substances rare is to know
That the self cannot be contained
And talked about in two words
We call a name and a surname
For they are just what they
Are, words.

We feel a presence rare that
Wants to climb on steps unseen
And go up and down the wild
Stair case the way we climbed
Trees as children and talked
To our friends through the
Leaves. For life gives us
A gift rare that allows us to
Ask what we are when we are on
The tree when we cannot fly
Like a bird, for one slip
And down we go and where we
Fall broken bones may result.

This life which we carry in us
This gift rare that binds us
Like chains also frees us when
We are doing things we love like
Meeting others on shores rare
Where no jelly fish stings as
The one of the beaches of our
lands.

We bathe together in waters warm
And wonder about planes that
disappear never to be heard from
With passengers whose voices are muffled
When we see one up in the sky as
We float for we feel we are in
An ocean which hides many truths
In its vastness. This vastness that
We wear like a vest on our bodies
Wet and shielded in swim suits that
Are clinging leaving the water to
Draw on us and create out of us
Pictures we cannot see for we leave
Them behind when we go out and walk
On the sand like the foot prints
That tell everyone we have been there
For they will always follow and not
Lead for they are just that, footprints.

This unique life of spirit that binds
That the fish who swim will never know
The way we know it even when two can
Be broken and feed thousands. These
Miraculous shapes that swim endlessly
Without tiring they rush under the
oceans the way we dwell in these lower
Parts of the atmosphere. Till the devil
Comes to these altitudes rare we are bound
With these unique chains that have
Us sing, laugh and dance in what we
Call freedom for it is so freeing
That chains that really binds us are
Those we choose.