Tendai Mwanake- A Poem

HOME AGAIN

 

He thought he had taken everything

Maybe he didn’t have to think about it

Maybe he really had to leave me

I thought he took away a part of me

I told myself he left with something, mine

But I couldn’t ask him not to

 

He left me an empty blue sky

Dry air is all I could feel inside me

I felt open, like an open sky

The sun mercilessly pouring hot

No clouds, no air, no breeze

I felt my insides drying, dying

Into a dead, dried, listless bird

 

He took a side path and left me alone

He left me alone in the lonely road

As I approached the intersection

He left me to die on the cusps of

Something life changing, life taking

He took something that is life giving

 

It took me years to find out

I had to die inside for me to find

That he hadn’t taken anything

That I still had everything inside me

I had to face another loss

My mother dying of Alzheimer

Made me realise what loss really meant

 

Those bouts of forgetfulness of

My mother’s. That she could

Forget me. That she could even

Forget who she was. Where she was

That her death didn’t represent loss

For she had nothing more to lose

 

Made me realise that I hadn’t lost

Anything, me or even him. That he

Was the one who had lost me

To find myself again on the road of life

That he had abandoned me in

For me to find myself again

To find my way home again.

 

 

 

Bio-

Voices from exile, a collection of poetry on Zimbabwe’s political situation and exile in South Africa was published by Lapwing publications, Northern Ireland in 2010. KEYS IN THE RIVER: Notes from a Modern Chimurenga, a novel of interlinked stories that deals with life in modern Zimbabwe was published by Savant books and publications, USA in 2012. Revolution, Logbook written by a drifter, and Voices from exile were both short listed by the Erbecce press poetry prize in 2012, 2011, and 2009 respectively, nominated for the Pushcart twice, 2008, 2010, commended for the Dalro prize 2008, nominated and attended Caine African writing workshop 2012. Published over 200 pieces of short stories, essays, memoirs, poems and visual art in over 100 magazines, journals, and anthologies in the following countries, the USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, India, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Romania, Mexico, Cameroon, Italy, France, Spain, Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand.