Skeletons of War

The thing about skin
is its ability to break,

bruise, even
bend around things.

Bones need skin,

for a while.

Without skin

bones have no face,

but skin leaves

without a trace -

bones stay forever.

The colour of race

is thin skin,

veins,

a soft, changeable glaze,

a passing karmic phase;

but bones remain,

on land, in land,

bones stake their claim.

Zimbabwe's bones are colourless

structures of the earth.

Injustices preserved

can wait patiently for years.

But bones breathe.

Bones will speak

and their stories

will be heard.

-© Shaista Tayabali, 2010

a re-post for dverse poetics
Chenjerai Mutasa, Zimbabwean sculptor, recently created a five-work piece with Biblical and Rastafarian connotations called Future Seed. The sculptures are made from found objects, used materials, depicting the interaction between the living and the dead, and the bridges of healing.
The politics of Zimbabwe are too sensitive and complex for any poem of mine to fathom but this wrote itself soon after I watched Mugabe and the White African. There have been so many farms and lives lost in the violent 'land re-distribution' policies of the last ten years; what transfixes the viewer is the dignity of Mike Campbell and his son-in-law Ben Freeth. It cuts through terror and fear and beatings and translates through race and time until all you hear, all you remember, is the sound of a land worth loving, struggling and dying for.