South Africa

South Africa

The Child is not Dead

The Child is not Dead

A poem by MBALI VILAKAZI.

The child is not dead, neither at Langa nor at Nyanga nor at Orlando nor at Sharpeville nor at the police station in Philippi where he lies with a bullet in his head.”          Ingrid Jonker

It was the worst thing to happen to you.

You curled up for what seemed like months. You went back to work a little too soon. You lost your job. You drank. Got divorced. Left the city. You lost your home. Lost your mind.

And, after: The grown men with big guns in uniform, the men who

gunned them down.

And, after: All the things you imagined for your children, things

they would never have, things they would never be.

And, after: The things you wish you had done differently.

How are you?

What did you do when the phone calls stopped, when friends and family found your pain too hard, when they no longer had the words for you, when they stopped coming around?

What did you do with the silence?

What did you do with the space:

The empty chair in every empty room

In every family picture

The empty spaces everywhere you go that should be full

It is another year without your child.

Will you

Light a candle

Go back there where they were lost to you

Speak their name repeatedly to anyone who will listen

MarshallMarshallMarshallMarshallMarshall

ArielArielArielAlrielArielArielArielArielAriel

ThembaThembaThembaThembaThemba

HectorHectorHectorHectorHectorHector

It is all over again.

Every birthday, every day, the should be back to school, the weddings that will never be, first graduate in the family, the grandchildren you will never meet

an entire generation changed.

What did you do with the blood? (It dirties everything.)

What did you do with the freedom?

Our memorial of sacrifice does not include you.

We have made them our own

When they were never ours.

The child belonged to someone.

The child belonged to you.

And you survived.

And we survived.

They survive too.

You are our process:

Transformation from Tragedy.

We are your Loss turned Legacy. DM

Photo: Umbiswa Makhubo carries the body of Hector Pieterson, photographed by Sam Nzima. Photograph: Sam Nzima/Archive

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.