1
They
folded the old man up .
and
put him away in a box.
They
held the lid down
with
the weight of their prayers,
and
swept out his dreams with the dust.
He
remains inside books on the shelf,
interleaved
and in marginal notes.
In
sticky-taped folders his photos are silent.
His
stories just paper
that
blows down the street.
The
old man has been put away in a box.
2
Is
it best to be forgotten than to be showcased and packaged
into
relics bought with blood and sold for gold?
Is
it best to be gone from the bankrupt world?
3
We
racket on noisily, choking up the bright smiling space
with
peeps and clicks as we grab and grub at the moving ghost.
With
our plastic and silicone tricks and cons,
we
constrict and construct, devise our devices,
and
vie to own the dead hero's fled spirit
to
know he blessed us lesser and more mortal souls.
4
For
twenty-seven years
they
folded my hero up.
They
slotted him through bars of iron
and
cemented over the cell.
Danger,
danger, danger clanged the gates and bells.
5
I
had seen that before.
The
white skull of the pulped dog,
frothing
at the red on its halo of mad stones.
The
crushed snake staring with flat tired eyes
at
its own curving skinless purple flesh under a brick.
He
left us to our hissing silence
to
peep through hooded eyes
Don't
think, don't speak, don't see.
6
From
the white death I was bequeathed I wanted a black angel to save me
but
he
was not an angel, just a man, and mercy was buried with him on Robben
Island, under the grey limestone dust.
7
I
was angry with him for turning to the dark side
which
was where they said he belonged,
which
they said, was stating the obvious.
They
said he was mad, bad, and red.
He
wanted us dead, they said.
He
hadn't saved us from ourselves by riding in
on
a storm-horse of purity and purpose.
A
laundering hero to whiten us whites
and
bleach out our sins.
Somebody
better than us
That's
what I needed.
8
No.
9
He
chose to be what they said.
Terror,
black, black terror.
I
was angry with him for leaving me
alone
in a world without anything good.
10
Then
we forgot.
11
We
forgot him.
We
forgot all about him.
We
lived on only in his memory.
We
were dead to hope
and
to our ideal of freedom.
12
Then
Mandela walked out and back with his hand raised.
He
stood up.
He
came out of the box.
Mandela.
Human.
Hero.
Ours.
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