January 25, 2019
Dear Subscriber:
Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of
view. The theme for this week is nationality and race in honor of Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 21.
I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com
.
A poem contrasting the ways in which two
newly-liberated African countries treated their white minorities:
Mugabe and Mandela,
Two strategies for change:
One would whites include;
One would whites estrange.
Murder begets murder;
White murder begets black.
Once one goes for blood,
There's no exit back.
Power unrestrained
By wisdom, love, or law
Leads to even greater
Horrors than before.
Yet letting whites retain
The property they stole
Leaves blacks still dispossessed,
Though equal at the poll.
For wealth is ever power,
Wont to have its way
With those of any color
Who happen to hold sway.
And so the pot still boils
With anger finely honed.
Was violence avoided?
Or was it just postponed?
Mugabe and Mandela,
Two ways to found a state:
One through storms still sailing;
The other drowned in hate.
© by Nicholas Gordon
If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or
share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my
site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mugabe.html.
For more poems about race, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html
.
This week’s theme: Nationality and Race
1/25: Mugabe and Mandela