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Reaping the Whirlwind

Bindura’s saffron hills have not forgotten them;
Mtoko’s eucalyptus sway and sigh as if again
Those focused minds are with us, those brave men,
The farmers of Rhodesia, who laboured in vain.

You ask where are they now? Swept by malevolence
Disguised in magnanimity, and racial aftermath
Of war to the ends of the earth, slim hope of recompense,
The young to new beginnings; the old a bitter epitaph.

Scrap, junk and columbine, alluvium of the poor
Is all that remains. Peddled for influence and power
Their farms lean slack-jaw in the wind, hungry to restore
Creativity; tight-knit and gracious in their finest hour.

What holocaust could deny ten million people food?
What envy drive those men, deep-rooted in our motherland,
To leave their country, purveyor once of plenitude,
Now of famine, ordered by the will of one man’s hand.

Will they return? Our misery is rigid in the cast;
Hope derelict; liberty drenched in blood. Too late
To free the captive minds of leaders held fast
By xenophobia and bigotry, the cruel agenda of hate.

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poem by Peter J White
Added by Poetry Lover
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