National Healing by Thandeka Gonde

Wounds that bled, gradually healed
But ugly scars thrust in our faces remained
Evil marks our actions left on our land
Innocent blood we inadvertently got on our hands
Mere reminders of where we come from

As for the atrocities and massacres
The crippling, maiming and cold-blooded murders
Random arrests and assorted weapons of torture
Breeding anger and hate, festering on the verge of rupture
Things we cannot, or rather, may not talk about
The backward still think “attempted extermination”
But did we not say “a moment of madness”

A decade of racial purification
Necessitated propaganda and astronomical inflation
Uprising was toned down to manageable degrees
While our engineers worked flat out to rectify the ballot gone haywire
Skyrocketing corruption, humanity bereft of dignity
Simultaneous outbreaks of disease and bearer’s cheques
Inbred hostility born of the scramble for survival
Lest we forget these chronicles of our valiant expedition
Our gallant march, in solidarity, towards “national healing”