Written in honour of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s delivery of the 7th Annual Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Lecture on 27 October 2020.
Dear Tambudzai,
The men and women returned home
But they never came back from the
Battles
There is no pension plan for
Revolutionaries
No 12-step programme for families
Turned to rubble
No one told the heroes that there are Crumbs
So big they fill up buildings in Dubai, Ships, planes, and the insatiable
Intestines
Of the mined and milked Earth
The only place Nehanda could keep
Safe
From her captors was the long
Corridor of
Dreams in her mind
Our heroes gleam from black and
White photographs stamped in your Mouth, Tambudzai
When we believed they stood for us
The day after Chimurenga
The day after Lancaster House
When Nehanda saw them she saw
Millions
Behind them
We believed they saw us too
Power is a two way mirror
It pulls out who you know yourself to
Be
The bones of Gukurahundi, Marikana, And AIDS babies are dancing, Tambudzai
They knew you before you knew
Yourself
When you said you are not a good girl
The bones grew spines of their own,
Branches and leaves
They hold on to every rebel who has Watched the collision of two worlds Give birth to a border child
Your country was once named
For a genocidal genius
His statue fell but his company didn’t
There remains a price on all of our heads
If you have loved a place that does not Know how to love you back
You are an activist
Tambudzai, there is no home for those Who love their countries enough
To change their countries
There are prisons and footprints
Across nations like O.R.’s
There is art where we make ourselves Anew
The vision chiseled in the eye of the Sculptor
The streets fed and healed by mothers
The post-colonial web of diplomacy/ Armed struggle/ capitalism/ Democracy/ kleptocracy/ and state Violence
If the state is failing now
Then tell us when it has succeeded
Your daughters have been coming, Tambudzai
They are here
Burning on digital stakes
Borderless
Belting out,
We don’t know how to wait anymore
