With Angels Walking In The Spaces Between Us Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

I thought we were being made in a jail,
When every day we went to school,
For the rules were tough and loaded on us,
Like going in to deep ourselves in poison,
That would kill the teaks on our skin.
We lingered as teachers sprayed our brains.

Now I see that we were chosen by one gambler,
Who took the best bet of his life on us,
For rebellion was cemented in us on the wall,
Of the belly that carried us into the world.

We twitched and turned in chairs daily,
Looking out through windows searching,
For a future written on four walls,
That would blossom in us in time.

Now we see the future and touch it,
And feel we should have known it then,
For it was surely wired in us daily,
As angels walked in between the spaces,
Of our daily walk punctuated with commas,
Of the bells that rang hour after hour.

Some of them invisible as they were,
Now sit in our memory saying, 'Yes, so and so.'
That is not the road to the future,
As they looked and listened to each and every one,
Of the answers we gave daily as we were being made.

Now I hear the angels for they had patience,
Repeated the same message the broken record,
While we sat, laughed and whispered aloud,
How funny they looked thinking we were made of gold.


Now that their work walks and serves the earth,
We pray daily for the thing that kept us alive,
When the message on virtues was the bore with lived on,
For it never changed but did rub some of its oil,
Into us which is why I share this story.

For who heard the 'holy, holy holy,
Sung by the likes of me in a dorm,
My legs on the wall while I ask,
Who was the shortest little man,
Or the man who came to Jesus at night.

The answers which rang were uttered,
Mischief ridden yes they were,
For in my language there was no word,
That spelt Nicodemus, but Logodima,
and Zaccheus but Zakewu's, as one kid,
Would answer as laughter rang into the air.

Who heard of a lesson on the plagues,
That had us view a land full of more frogs,
Than the ones on our roads in summer,
That stink after a car has hit them,
And give flies a feast of years,

Yet she did speak those truths old,
About darkness you can feel,
Not the one in our brains at that time,
But a biblical darkness we had to see,
As she searched spreading her hands everywhere.

You would think we would become found,
And finished out in the lost widow's mite,
As they showed us how it was brought gone,
And how happy heaven us,
For such was mission school,
With its stories biblical,
For now I see the penny shines a face,
On this page with a laugh.