by Abu Bakr Solomons
Does the pope’s walk of words for his followers’ scandal of evil –
‘’assimilate, you savage Inuit!’’ – heal wounds…
?
Can the German nation’s Nazi guilt ever pluck their demons
from the gas chambers of history …
?
Will Yale-groomed American presidents bring reparation for the bloody sweat
of African slaves stripped and sold in the colonies…
?
Who will clean the killing fields of Cambodia, purge the blood-stained earth
and placate haunting sorrows of the Khmer and their Buddha’s tears …
?
Will TRCs usher deliverance to lives forced into barren Bantustans and beer-stained rape
tortured in detentions of the mind and matter…
?
Who is the real enemy the mountain men in Afghanistan are battling
when they veil and chain their girls and women…
?
Can we expect to leave the shadows of chaos
Or imagine we will ever be reprieved?
Why not sanction sin, commit abuse, as we ponder:
are we born free?