Risen From Her Hunger

Agin a voracious hunger for knowledge
from childhood to puberty
on through her adulthood
with its perils of parenting,
they surrounded her with propaganda
from a press full of poison
covering her eyes with newsprint
full of gibberish
of disinformation
that could not stain her skin
or etch into her heart.

For her nose could smell truth
while her lips would not be silenced
as she stood upright and proud
crossing her agrarian arms,
for values
life virtues
that imbued through her genes
to be passed onto her children
and future generations
beneficiaries of a new equality
inheritors of freedom.

Yet her mind remains scarred
her soul bleeds with pain
never to forget the trauma
though in her heart she forgives,
the deprivations of apartheid
the squalor
the beatings

Risen From Her Hunger

knowing she has risen above
the shackles of oppression
confident that her struggle
was never to be in vain.