Walking This Royal Maze Begins Here Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

Quite a task this dismantling of fairgrounds,
Hastily shifting from rotundas that chip away,
Every summer comes with its own rain and bowing,
For when you courtesy you are breaking the rule,
For the courts once spoken of as loving have hardened
Older moths that were reluctant have eaten all,
That did not offer the royal touch that is soft.

Emperors have walked here have said it all,
That love here is like the chattering you hear,
Of subjects, about subjects and subjects about rulers,
For it is true for you and them there is no rain,
But frozen grounds that reek of frozen hate,
Staled out by time in its rancidness.

When the show falls very silent in the fall,
Of the veil that covered you the cathedral train,
You remember the coming of summer you waited for,
For your story roused jealousy even in the grounds,
Where the animals with loveliest fur hide in wait.

Nearly twenty years you have been here,
Has it been that long really, you ask,
You ask for time seems to have stood still,
Stone faced as the gates of this place do,
That only say, 'as you should know,
Only in death do you walk out of here, '
For it is a jail you chose knowing,
That the bang closes it once and for all.

Even if you spit giggling white love,
Wrestling with time is a challenge like love,
Step by step you go on charter after charter,
That calls on you to put up a face,
Who
Of the delighted royal whose handshakes,
Quench the thirst of souls built to dream,
That one day they can also be near,
Enough for you to to touch them personally.

Were it not for their mood forever singing,
Even in standing looking for this being,
This saint that comes out and reaches out to them,
The subjects who returned from reading the headlines,
About you and your problems like theirs,
This faithfulness you have developed would shake,
While kings sit and look at their thrones,
Demanding that you go on and make no mistake,
For kinging it is not like living it,
Till death do us apart.

This contract is not written in stone,
But in unsung songs that are still to come
Where the commoner can only excell,
In the things of the world you once knew,
That were hidden to those who show off crown,
And wager the biggest some at the betting house.
For we live to eat together one day,
When all this facade is no more.