A Wreath Laid for Madiba

The gallant warrior is now gone

Amidst raging torrents of forlorn

For the world he had indeed enthralled

By his strength behind the prison walls.

The prisoner’s fame blossomed and bloomed

In Robben Island’s “pen of doom”

And Pollsmoor with its mighty bars

Is now a place defamed and marred.

The prison cell was not a place

That could this noble son debase

And mercenaries on their fearsome drill

Could not defray his strident will.

That speech he made from the prisoners’ dock

Engineered in part a crack

That helped to make the vestibule

Into democratic rule.

He declared with confidence his zeal

To force the oppressors to repeal

The evils that apartheid dealt

That blacks and all minorities felt.

Madiba stood and made it known

That the world should on apartheid frown

For he saw a multicoloured world

As civilizations most precious pearl.

The circumstances of his life

Unmasked in him in years of strife

A far more virtuous human being

Than the villain from the Boer’s scene.

For who would suffer so much pain?

And then decided to refrain

From returning all the blows he got

Instead, on vengeance turned his back?

Quite a man he was indeed

For such attribute plant its seed

Deep in the breast of many and start

A revolution of the heart!

The whole world now must take a leaf

From the golden booklet of the “chief,”

For by his courage, will and charm

South Africa was by him reformed.

So now the warrior and the sage

Who endured apartheid’s vicious rage

In life and death the world engaged

And has left his mark on history’s page.

The magnitude of his words and deeds

Lies not in empty talks and creeds

For all who probe his work will find

South Africa’s greatest natural mine.

So now before this hour decays

I must hasten now in time to lay

This wreath at Robben Island, where

Madiba entered without fear.

In a multicoloured garb of grace

In great triumph he left that place

And by his gentle charm and might

He led his foes to see the light.

So now the world must honour him

And their anthems to his memory sing

For if he had a thirst for blood

South Africa would have seen a flood.

Despite resistance that he met

Madiba with time the clock reset

And South Africa is now a better place

For each and every class and race.

On the foundation he has laid

For which his years in prison paid

That nation must with time erect

Interracial bridges that connect.