HERITAGE POETRY

The Land of Plenty

The plains whisper of the labouring pains that birthed the gurgling, gap-toothed gem that is the land of plenty
the valleys speak with the voices of a thousand people - welcome one and all
in all glory and in all dishonour
in all love, and in all strife...
in all that is who we are, who we have become, and who we will never acknoledge
South Africa the land of plenty awaits, breath abated for her childrren to walk her hills and re-claim their being.

The kaleidoscope of her chilren,
Spread over the Drakensberg
In clicke's tongues and moue'd lips, in rolling r's that define the clan
The guttural utterances of her sons of the soil beam hello one and all
South Africa the land of plenty embraces her guests with the work-worn arms of her sons and daughters.

Her sun-kissed rivers rush over sedimentaries
That thrust through the earth at the cradle that bore human-kind...
Her moon-beamed lakes bathe the glittering gold and sharp-toothed diamonds
That brought North to South and blended the melting pot for the browns and the pinks, and the blue-eyed and the brown-eyed to form a nation proud.
South Africa the land of plenty beckons ro the prodigals to return home - just to greet...
Greet good old mother Africa, the place where life began...
To return Home to the tear-kissed, smiling-eyes of the people with alove that overflows the high-rises and the rondavels, the shacks and the sprawling mansions...
South Africa the land of plenty beckons to those who've yet to set foot on what eventually becomes home to many --
Africa where life began,
Love lies in her heart: South Africa where love lives
South Africa...is Home.


The Land of Many heroes

South Africa, the land of many heroes
She birthed the many that have planted us in the spotlight
She has birthed the many that given us strength
From her Northen flanks lies Maropeng where we will all return
Tswenyane where proof exists that fairy-tales are true, and stones were soft, and man once walked with animals, and God became flesh and bore a son - Matsieng son of Lowe.
The land of the North glitters pale in the northern sun that bears down on a savannah that weeps with the mielie-stalk
The red-toned skin of her children glistens with the tears of being forgotten, persecution a doubt in their hearts that burdens their aims, chains their minds and renders towns ghostly
This is the land of heroes - literary, liberation and economic
the land of Plaatjie, Tiro and Bafokeng
Agree, be healthy and prosper say her sons of daughters of the North with faces lifted to the South.

South Africa the land of many heroes
Conquered and shows her strength from her west flank
From the west flank she bore strong sons and daughters
She wept with joy when the kingdom of the Zulus was born
Though blood ran red in the rivers, the valleys and the pleins
Though many fled in terror, the Great Moshoeshoe stood strong atop a mountain top held his ground and bore for his mother the Basotho - people of the crocodile, true-blood royalty of the people of the South
This proud mother's heart bled at the enslavement of her children by her adopted ones, at the chains that bound them, the whips, rods, fists, and lustful bodies that tore through the ochre-toned skins of the the fruit of her loins...
Her head thrown back in anguish her voice thundered to the heavens to Thobega a' phatswa, Mvelingqangi and Qamatha, her throat hoarse and raw with tears
And God as the African sun beat down on her soil, and the rivers ran dry and the Africa's brother's and sister turned their heads away in shame and scorned her children and the vileness of her acts...
It is then that the heroes stood, it is then that God's great power filled them, it is then that human-kind-ness filled and a war cry was heard, it is then that the adopted sons saw their acts through God's eyes and saw that they were rotten, it was then the night-sky filled with fire, shelters exploded with the power of the sound of her children's voices as they cried "No More" - it was Biko, it was Tiro, it Mbeki and many others whose names have yet to be recorded, in the millions and the multitudes that stamped their feet and shook the earth in the sacred trance of the children of the soil as they remembered that they too were God's children...the thundering earth shook and the wall of hatred and intolerance tumbled and love came flooding back.

And so it is that
South Africa the land of many heroes is proud to display her gold-toned, glistening charcoal and chestnut skinned children
Who plunge themselves in the dancing, emerald-blue waters off the coasts of her shores
In multitudes and millions they throng through cities by the sea where east meets south, north meets west, and west meets south.
The mists of the great oceans become the heavenly-holy tears that cleanses the stench of enslavement off the skins of her children - influenced, infused, fused and merged
And are known as the rainbow people of the Land of Many heroes.