Take heart
Sufferers at their cruel claws
You whose reward for labour
Has been the executioner’s block
Take heart. Once I saw a fallen bird dead
I wished it alive
But I could only wish.

Then saw I in the sky
Flocks of birds
Flying to freedom
From freedom

And I channelled my heart
From the dead of the ground
To the living of the sky
And out of their ascent
I learnt a lesson
To fashion myself something better
To be alive and well and doing.

Yet not forgiving, never forgiving
These who have taken
What I once held in loyalty
For they knew what they were doing.