Vanishing Traces Of Gold Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

My heart is losing it gold linings,
And starting to worship at this tower,
That sometimes vanishes into the night,
Then I feel my knees shaking in the cold,
For the juices that kept me supple,
Are starting to harden, for here at the
Alter of time, there is nothing I can
Change, but just bow down for it is
Easier to give way, than to plaster walls,
When the mud is falling gradually.

I had knees of gold that knelt,
On mats of gold when confessing,
That the day was hard and bones,
That stood and let me bow, before
I tell the angels to convey my
Message of the day and tell it
My last and my most beautiful.

Life gets harder as the coast
Gets nearer. The wind sails blow
Softly and at half mast, for the
Shipmate is losing the grip on
The oars, so the rowing team gets
Weaker, for the hands on the ores
Are fewer and the boat loses the
Position hoped for, and nobody gets
To the end a winner, but an also ran.

These vanishing traces of gold,
That lined every strata of rock,
Are now way down in the depths,
Where they have sunk, forcing
The miners to go down never to
Be retrieved, in the amounts that
Were hoped for.

To get up from here where I kneel,
And recover a few traces of gold,
I need to dig deeper into the pool,
Where the water has gathered, as it
Fell from the sweat in my forehead.
For my lamp is also adding, to the
Heat for in this mine it is very
Hot. The work we do in the pits,
Of the earth earns us just a penny,
When you sell your labor and dig,
Never to pocket the bars of gold,
That go into the vault in London,
In the names of the big guns, whose
Names appear in the skyline of the
Towers, that grace our world with
Shiny windows, and walls we built
That have taken most of the gold,
Our sweat worked for.

We cannot take back what we gave,
For a few pennies, but we can keep
Our words for they will be money one
Daym when the big guns start to read
What a sacrifice we made, at temperatures
So hot, while they fanned themselves
And peered through windows at the sky,
Looking out at the weather for rain,
When trying to shield ourselves from
It, when the wind forces us to go,
After it has violently broken our
Umbrellas.

Dripping wet we stand and watch, the
Smoothest cars gleaming with fancy
Tires, going into parking spaces deep
In the earth where only a few go, for
Their spaces are marked with the word
Reserved, for they came with them from
The previous world, and will go with them
To the next, where me and you will shed
Our sinewy arms, and wear ones of light,
And once again show some of our traces
Of gold. Theirs will be gold rotting in
The vaults of this world, and who really
Will have the last laugh? I am not so sure,
So said a miner's child hungry in the streets
Of Johannesburg South Africa.