(UN)seen
By Lebo Mashile
The silence is always shouting
The (un)seen is never (un)felt
(un)spoken words by
(un)seen people create
(un)heard conversations
Who speaks when no one is listening?
Who listens to those who do not speak?
Silent conversations abound
They bounce off walls
They break through concrete
When they find us
They reside in our forgotten places
They dwell in the corridors of our longings
Some people belong
While others learn to become a part
Of their longings
They chase the (in)visible following cords
That can only be seen by their shadows
The darks mists of shadows
Cannot be contained
They cling to the mind
Like hope to the soul
If history is a map
Then every mystery is a compass
And shadows cast light
On the (un)known
Visionaries make visible
That which is (in)visible
They turn the inner workings
Of the world inside out
Time and land bear witness to everything
There can be no secrets
On this changing earth
The (un)said throbs beneath the surface
And pushes through the cracks
Suddenly women have always made art
Tomorrow Africans will be keepers of science
Yesterday the land knew that it could not be owned
Today it cries in dry places
Who are those people
Who know things that are not knowledge
They cast their shadows on the future
Like an umbilical cord of honesty
To know we must (un)know
To speak we must hear ourselves in the silence
To listen we must excavate the quiet beneath the scream
To be seen we must disappear
In order to find the vacant space
Waiting to be filled