Courage Within | Jambiya Kai

Colours of Courage

The beast rises in power                                                                                                                                                                and my tears fall for the fatherless.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               For the girlchild whose belly swells from incest and abuse,                                                                                                                         my anger blazing at conspirators who choose silence over courage;                                                                                                                                                                                  children locked down in crowded cones on drums,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 their dreams aborted by bellicose rhetoric,                                                                                                            and pores leaking with the stench of paucity and dearth

The world calls me broken and battered                                                                                                                             it says that I am a victim of plundered identity                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           But listen carefully……                                                                                                                                                      Songs and dance shade my brow from the sweltering sun,                                                                                             the balm for searing tears.

The world may call me wrecked and ruined,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             a bloodbath of gangsterism and war,                                                                                                                              but what it does not say                                                                                                                                                        is that I am shedding the impurities of imperialism                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        and systems designed to shut me down                                                                                                                                       I am the guardian of greatness born in huts                                                                                                                                                of mothers who sorrow over empty pots,

I am the gold that emerges from oppression                                                                                                             the river horse basking in the sun.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             I am giraffe nibbling at the stars,                                                                                                                                            and narratives of hope drinking from the copious flow of rivers                                                                                                                    that overwhelm disease and destruction;                                                                                                                                The Imbongi’s tales on current affairs soothe grief and gross injustice,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        eager tongues and clicks carried on waves of resilience.

I am the roar of the lion and the honk of the hippo

I am the sound of triumph

I am, 

Africa

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The Light Within

My doctor’s secretary stared at me from across the room,
I’d come for reassurance.
My chest felt tight.
The atmosphere filled with viral tension.
"Do you believe in aura"?
I searched her face—shy in the scrutiny of her vision.
"I believe we are clothed in our inner selves
that place where God resides
 it's that presence that permeates spaces and transforms beautiful to breath-taking
 like drops of honey on dew
oceans floating into shores
nature's four seasons".

My 20 Seconds of shy was swept up in thunderous applause.
She nodded, closed her eyes to lock in the sight only she could see, 
gleaming like a sampler of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee; 
the scent of contentment and nostalgia. 
Understanding arose like a fragrant aroma. 
Blue Mountain—a cooling relief from red-hot sun.

"When you walked through the door I felt as if I was floating through a field of sunflowers". 
Her delight sailed through the lace of my own reverie.
For a moment she reminded me of a little girl holding her puppy for the first time.
"I’m caught up in a sanctuary of sun-speckled fern—I can't explain it. I can't stop smiling".
God and I smiled too—we giggled.
I came for medicine but she met Life in a forest of gold
I imagined Blue Mountain, 
sunset sprinkled across a silent lake
A city on a hill that bears the insignia of hope.
In that moment I breathed, free of fear.
A city on a hill
Hope.

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