Grandmother

I brim with pride
I brim with anger
This has been no easy ride
Ever present is the danger
That we will turn on each other
Rather than to one another
Ready we must
To build a nation robust
My grandmothers
And theirs
Were forced to the soil
Not the soil of their mothers to toil
But the land the gallant Zulu reign
Usurped by the Teutonic queen vain
Indenture in name
Shamesless slavery in popular refrain
Profit they did
Englishmen,  Scotsmen, Welshmen sordid
Trafficking in human cargo
Nary a thought for the devastation below
Below deck on slaveships they wept
From ancient ancestral villages swept
From Madras,  Veloor,  Bihar and Kanyakumari
Ripped, hungry,  sweating and weary
To the land of iLembe they were made hurry
To turn green to gold under whips and ropes scary
To sugarcane, tea, coffee, coalmines, railways and domestic service
Went potters, poets, scholars, jewellers, landowners, gravediggers and sex workers
The punters in London and Glasgow rolled in glee
Imaliyavuza!
My grandmothers
Are long gone
Their memory I honour
I brim with pride
I brim with anger
But my energies I must direct
To the nation we must build with no refrain
Or 154 years would have been in vain.